Protect the Pokémon!
by SillyQuill
Summary: Seto must use his skills as a trainer to protect not only his brother and his home, but also the Pokemon breeding ground he has hidden on the Kaiba estate. If he doesn't, Gozaburo and Team Rocket will detroy the Pokemon, KC, and Seto Kaiba himself.
1. The Playroom

**Just so you all know, I generally only use the original 151 Pokémon in my fics with a few exceptions occurring. It's mostly due to the practicality of limiting the number of choices open to me so that I don't spend half of my life searching for **_**just**_** the right Pokémon for **_**just**_** the right trainer. **

**I don't own ****Pokémon**** or ****Yugioh!****.**

Mokuba crawled on his belly, army-style, across the ground, beneath the bushes and brambles planted on the southern slope of the Kaiba estate. His Treecko crawled along beside him, eyes fastened on their "prey."

They came to a shuffling halt still several yards away from the target, watching as it snuffled around the roots of a raspberry bush that had popped up on the uneven incline. Waddling/skipping sideways about the side of the raspberry bush, the Venonat that Mokuba had set his heart on unwittingly turned its back to the trainer and his Treecko.

"Are you ready, Treecko?" Mokuba whispered to the Pokémon at his side.

"_Tree_," the leafy, lizardy creature answered, the word resonated in its small chest.

"Good." Mokuba slowly, carefully removed two pokéballs from within his yellow vest, one empty, the other waiting to be emptied. "Let's do this."

* * *

"Seto Kaiba!" Mokuba called out, trying to find his brother within the expansive mansion.

"_Treecko!_" the Treecko added in. Mokuba smiled down at his very first Pokémon who smile-smirked back. They were standing in the hall outside of Seto's home office, having just searched in there for the elder Kaiba, but finding nothing except Seto's close-to-evolving Meowth asleep on his desk, curled around a clear jar of pennies Mokuba had given as a peace-offering to the shine-loving Pokémon.

Getting no response back, Mokuba sighed and said to his Treecko, "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait."

The Treecko also sighed, "_Tree_," and scuffed his foot across the floor.

"It's okay. I need to go and water Bellsprout anyway." Mokuba began making his way back down the hallway they had come.

He could understand his Treecko's disappointment; he had really wanted to tell Seto about their victory as well, but his brother had an uncanny knack for being able to disappear and not be found until he was ready. Unless they wanted to provoke Seto's Meowth into going to fetch him, which would really only get them torn up from the kitty-thing's teeth and claws. They had no choice but to pass the time until Seto chose to reveal himself again.

Halfway across the mansion, on the way to its trainer's room, Treecko leaped onto the back of Mokuba's vest, avoiding his long black hair, tugging on the yellow fabric above Mokuba's heart.

"Okay, okay." Pulling out one of the pokéballs he'd had earlier, Mokuba said, "Come on out, Machop," releasing the Pokémon.

The grayish, boyish Pokémon immediately walked up to his trainer, a smile upon its open face. Meeting Mokuba's hazy lavender eyes with its own large red ones, the Machop gave a rumbling, purring growl of greeting within its throat.

"Hello, Machop."

"_Treecko._" The green Pokémon leaped down from Mokuba's back and walked up to miniature, turtle-ish body-builder. Lord only knows why, but the two Pokémon had become great friends, and it was Machop that Mokuba had used in tandem with Treecko to capture the Venonat just a short time earlier. They were a remarkable, if somewhat unlikely, pair.

The two walked side by side behind Mokuba, chattering away at each other, saying who-knew-what, though Treecko was rubbing its upper arm where the Venonat had pinched it with its miniature pincers. Perhaps they were speaking about the battle that had just been in, reveling in their victory.

After turning down a flight of stairs and making their way to the eastern side of the mansion, the trio of human and Pokémon reached a closed set of white double-doors. Grabbing the French handles of each of the doors, Mokuba turned and pushed them open, flooding the hallway with sunlight. He and his Treecko and Machop walked into the bright, wide open room, steps creaking on the long beams of white-painted wood that made up the floor.

The room itself was actually an old solarium that had been remodeled to fit Mokuba's needs when he became a trainer hardly three years ago. Almost everything was white, and if it wasn't white, that's because it was a clear glass window.

"_Bell?_" a drowsy Bellsprout asked from its pot on a stand in the center of the room. Seeing who it was, it began waving its leaves and pear-like head lazily back and forth, basking in the sunlight, but twitching its roots, showing it was ready to be watered.

"I'm coming, you silly little 'Sprout," Mokuba informed it kindly enough. The Bellsprout used one of its roots to grab and rattle its pot, indicating its impatience. Mokuba rolled his eyes, strolling over to the deep porcelain sink set in the southwestern corner of the room. After twisting the old-fashioned faucets to their full extent and placing a giant tin watering can beneath the torrent, Mokuba looked around the "playroom," as he called the solarium.

Rather than housing plants or even acting as a sitting area for anyone, the room was used as a place for Mokuba's Pokémon to wander about freely, giving the room its name. They _could_ use the entire mansion as their roaming grounds should they and Mokuba wish them to, but seeing as Seto's Pokémon already had sovereignty over the house, and seeing as they were _Seto's_ Pokémon, they hadn't been raised as the friendliest Pokémon. It was a more practical and safe thing to keep them confined to this one area.

Bellsprout took the center stage, insisting his little pot be in the exact middle of the room, speaking to the little Pokémon's big ego. Treecko had a nest of vines built in a hammock-like structure over the sink, while Machop had a nest of bundled-up blankets just to the side of the same sink. A 500-gallon fish tank on the opposite side of the room was where Mokuba's Poliwag spent much of its time. And, a nine by nine dirt square placed in the northeastern corner of the room was where his Oddish was currently planted, with only its clumping of green leaves sticking out above the soul. A folding cot Mokuba had brought in when he'd found himself falling asleep on Machop's bed was set up beside the plot of dirt.

He hadn't intended for it to happen, but it was slowly beginning to look as if his specialty was going to be grass-type Pokémon. Admittedly, it was only three of five, three of six now after the Venonat, but none of his other Pokémon had a common thread among them, and Venonat as a bug-type was pretty close to being grass-type in Mokuba's, and in Seto's, opinion.

Except, plant-types loved sunlight, as was illustrated by the fact that the playroom was a solarium. Venonats liked bright lights, but only within the darkness. The fact that this one had been out during the day was unusual. Looking around, Mokuba didn't see a single place with enough shadow that his new Venonat's highly sensitive eyes would be protected in. This was an unexpected dilemma.

The watering can began to overflow. Mokuba turned the water off and lifted the heavy can up so that it rested on the edge of the sink. First, Mokuba emptied the can partway into the nearby pots from which grew the vines that made up Treecko's bedding. Next, he went over to the Bellsprout, which waved its leaves happily and sunk its roots deep into the soil of its accommodating pot in preparation for the dousing to come.

"Enjoy, little 'Sprout," Mokuba said, a wry twist to his lips as the Bellsprout completely ignored him in favor of the shower. It made sense in some ways that the Pokémon didn't respond well to Mokuba. Technically, it wasn't his; it was Seto's. Some business affiliate or another had given it to him, seemingly not having a clue as to the sort of Pokémon that Seto had a preference for. Seto had passed it on to Mokuba, and the only reason the Bellsprout bothered to stay with the younger Kaiba was that it had plenty of good water, soil, and sunlight to feast upon while in his possession.

_Whatever, little 'Sprout,_ Mokuba thought, deciding to make a date sometime soon to catch the Pokémon officially, so that there was no doubt that the Bellsprout was his.

Mokuba moved on, heading for the dirt patch and the bunch of leaves sticking out. Mokuba sprinkled the remaining water inches of water over the Oddish, knowing that while the Poliwag was gone, Oddish had probably dunked itself in the tank of water and wasn't in need of any serious hydration.

The bundle of leaves began to give muffled giggles as the droplets of water tickled its green appendages. Kneeling down, with a giant smile on his face, Mokuba gently tugged on the leaf nearest to him. The Oddish gave a shriek of surprise and delight before it began giggling again. The leaves began to wave and quiver wildly, and suddenly the round, blue head of the Pokémon popped from the ground with a happy declaration of, "_Oddish!_"

Mokuba laughed. "Hello," he clucked at it. Treecko was most definitely Mokuba's favorite Pokémon, having been his first and his most loyal, but Oddish was the one that continuously brought him enjoyment and played the most on Mokuba's own lightheartedness.

"Do you want to help me with something a little later?" he whispered to it conspiratorially.

"_Odd!_" it squealed elatedly, struggling to gets its feet out of the hole it had burrowed itself into, its exuberance demanding that it jump and gallivant around the room to show its glee to everyone else and inspire them to be just as joyful.

Mokuba laughed again and lifted the Oddish from its hole, keeping it cupped in his hand. "_Shush_. Later we're going to take that Bellsprout down a couple of pegs, but, for now, we need to keep it a secret. We can't let the little 'Sprout find out, 'kay?"

The Oddish looked at Mokuba with wide eyes and mouth formed into a tiny, little 'o'. Then, it did its best to nod, causing its feet to move in a pendulum motion back and forth in the gap between Mokuba's hands, babbling its name over and over again. Abruptly, having taken in Mokuba's words completely, Oddish stilled its movements and did its best to making a shushing sound, making it sound more like an "_isssshhhhh_" instead.

Mokuba laughed again, setting the Oddish down and patting it gently on its side, since patting it on its head would crumple its leaves.

Mokuba thought as he got up and walked to the fish tank, _I probably should have waited to tell it_. The Bellsprout was bound to get suspicious of Oddish if it continued staring at it like it was, an eager look in its eyes as it bit its tiny lower lip to keep itself from chirping out Mokuba's plan. But, even while watching the Bellsprout, the Oddish was able to walk sideways and follow Mokuba to the tank.

Mokuba pulled a pokéball from inside his vest and released the contents that came slipping out.

Mokuba did his best to catch the Poliwag, but its slimy skin had it slipping about in his hand, and the best he could do was toss it in the general direction of the tank so that it at least didn't fall on the floor.

The skittish Poliwag immediately darted behind a mass of salveyo weed tricked into growing in the tank.

Now, only one occupied pokéball was in Mokuba's vest.

"Treecko?" Mokuba called. The Pokémon looked over from where it and Machop had been sitting on the floor in front of the Bellsprout, having a thumb-war, allowing the other Pokémon to win, not that it wouldn't have anyway.

"I'm going to my room to get to know the Venonat. Do you want to come or stay here?"

The Treecko got up and went to stand by the doors, giving its answer.

* * *

Up in Mokuba's room, Mokuba and Treecko were closing all the blinds, making the room as dark as possible, though leaving the door to the hall open so that a large rectangle of light remained spread on the floor.

Taking a seat in the patch of light, Mokuba took off his vest and laid it on the floor beside him. Reaching inside, he got out his newly filled pokéball. "Ready, Treecko?"

"_Treecko,_" the Pokémon responded from an electrical outlet beside the bed.

Mokuba let the Venonat out.

At first, it was dazed by the light from the hall, stalling a few feet from Mokuba. Then, it hurried off into the darkness, its clodhopper feet hustling as fast as they could, in the opposite direction of the Treecko that had helped beat and catch it.

"Now's good, Treecko," Mokuba said after having just watched the Venonat shift around in the darkness for a little while, getting itself acquainted with the room, paying special attention to a pair of Mokuba's discarded sneakers at one point.

Treecko plugged in an old nightlight of Mokuba's, immediately catching the Venonat's attention out of the corner of its eye. Treecko began walking up towards Mokuba, causing the Venonat to shift it weight from foot to foot in anticipation

The moment Treecko was firmly seated next to Mokuba, Venonat hustled over to the nightlight, darting around the frame of light they were sitting in. Upon reaching it, the Venonat began running its antennae over the apparatus, its attention singularly devoted to the light-emitting device.

"…I think it's curious," Mokuba declared after a while of just watching the Pokémon. The shoes had really given it away, but the way it kept seemingly trying to find the reason _why_ the light was glowing really clinched Mokuba's theory.

Each of Mokuba's Pokémon had a trait or two that truly represented the Pokémon in Mokuba's mind. Treecko was loyal, Machop was friendly, Bellsprout was stuck-up, Poliwag was skittish and aloof, and Oddish was gleeful and childlike. Venonat being curious would be a wonderful addition as far as Mokuba was concerned.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over Mokuba and his Treecko. Looking over his shoulder, Mokuba saw his big brother's silhouette, but his silhouette was the only thing he saw framed in the doorway; there was no actual person there.

Smiling with a sarcastic edge in his eyes, Mokuba asked, "Is my brother back, then?"

The silhouette began melting, losing its form until nothing humanoid was left in the space that had been previously occupied. Instead, a Gengar floated where Seto's chest would have been, chuckling to itself over its favorite little prank. He turned his back to the younger Kaiba, scarlet-glowing eyes glancing back over its shoulder, waiting for Mokuba to get up and follow the ghostly being to wherever Seto was waiting for him.

"I'm coming," Mokuba told the thing, getting to his feet. Treecko followed his trainer's lead, keeping a careful eye latched onto the creepy, phantasmal Gengar.

"Come here, little Venonat," Mokuba coaxed as he recalled the Pokémon to its new home within the pokéball. "I can't wait 'til Seto gets to see you."

**I just can't seem to help myself from making crossovers with ****Pokémon**** ^-^.**

**Most of my information I've acquired from Bulbagarden, a sub-site of Wikipedia. Occasionally, I've twisted things to benefit my story, but I've mostly kept to what I've found there. If there are any extremely erroneous facts or details, please do inform me, but do so in a polite manner. I want to be as accurate as I can be with my fics, but there's no need for flames if things are incorrect. **

**Finally, I may not be getting back to this story for a while, but I have every intention to finish it. The amount of reviews I get will probably influence it, but I have a lot of stuff going on with my main and other sub-account, so it's difficult to predict.**

**Thanks for reading, and please review!**


	2. Nitty and Kitty

**Thanks for waiting for this update. I'm just recently learning to curb the impulse to unleash the plot-bunnies the moment they seem anywhere close to being mature enough to go off on their own, which is often way too soon. I'll be keeping a tighter rein on those starting now. In the meantime, I'm able to say that I have a suitable plot and format worked out for this fic, and I hope you all enjoy chapter two of ****Protect the Pokémon!**

_Five years ago:_

_Seto stalked quietly through the attic of the Kaiba mansion. A 'thunk' came from the far corner and Seto became so still he stopped breathing. The Spearow Seto's adoptive father had "given" him a few months ago fluttered its wings and cawed in mild alarm from where it was perched on his extended arm. Seto hushed it and they stood, waiting. _

_There was probably no point in stealth at this point; Seto could already feel the eyes of the Pokémon that had made the attic into their home studying him. He had the strong urge to turn and run, having no doubt that most, if not all, of the Pokémon were Ghost-types. Just the other day a person had been reported as having been "scared to death" by a rogue Haunter. _

_But, even if he were to run out of the cavernous room, Gozaburo would just throw him back in and lock the single door to the attic behind him "to teach him to be a man." He might just force Mokuba in as well as an incentive for Seto. Gozaburo had refused to turn any lights on in here for his adopted son, but, even so, Seto knew Mokuba would immediately become aware of the dark and vindictive shapes floating through the deeper shadows of the room. His little brother wouldn't stand a chance in here, which meant Seto had to. _

_Seto took a careful step forward, doing his best not to bump into one of the dusty stacks of boxes or sheet-covered pieces of furniture. It seemed incredulous that the rest of the mansion would be so well-kept, clean and orderly, while this space was left to rot. Seto was sure that he could even smell mold in the dank air. He made a disgusted face. Gozaburo probably kept it this way to attract Ghost Pokémon on purpose._

"_Spear," his Spearow clucked, unhappy with their predicament. Everything was much too murky and confined for the bird-like Pokémon's liking. _

"_I know," thirteen-year-old Seto whispered to it. He held his hand out to it and it briefly rubbed its stubby beak and brown feathered head against it. Gozaburo would not approve of the brief showing of affection and comfort between the two of them. But, he wasn't here. _

_And, Gozaburo wouldn't be satisfied with Seto merely stalking around the attic, waiting to come upon an unsuspecting Gastly or possibly a Haunter (he wasn't even going to try for a Gengar and put his Spearow at risk when he knew he couldn't win). 'Anyone can stumble around in the dark,' Gozaburo would say. 'You wanted to be a Kaiba so much. So, buck up and win already for God's sake.'_

_Seto gritted his teeth at the imagined words, knowing that they weren't actually that far off the mark of what the old man would say._

_Seto pulled a pair of earplugs from his pant pockets and inserted them one handedly, continuing to balance his Spearow on his left arm with its falconer's glove protecting him against the Pokémon's talons._

_Once the earplugs were in, Seto walked to what he judged to be the center of the room and asked his Spearow if it was ready. Though the Pokémon couldn't smirk with its beak, the smug cast to its eyes that Seto could just make out was all the answer that he needed and he gave a smirk of his own in recognition._

"_Go!" Seconds later, his Spearow had launched from Seto's arm and was racing around the attic, screeching at such a level that it not only drove all the Pokémon out of their hiding, but made certain that everyone within half a mile knew that this was his and Seto's territory. _

* * *

Present day:

Seto's Gengar led Mokuba and Treecko through the halls of the Kaiba mansion, purposely taking them on a twisted and twining route, trying to disorient them. Eventually, Mokuba felt that it was time to say something to the sadistic, ghostly Pokémon.

"I've been in this part of the house longer than you have, Gengar. No matter what you do, I'll know where I am," Mokuba informed dryly, not exactly amused, but not yet annoyed. He couldn't say the same for Treecko. The green Pokémon was glaring at the malicious, floating purpleness, not trusting Seto's Gengar in the least.

Gengar, after slowing for just a moment, darted off in a sudden direction, forcing Mokuba to hustle after it with its new, quickened, _spiteful_ pace.

"Stupid, passive-aggressive Pokémon," Mokuba muttered under his breath, moving his rate up to a jog.

"_Treecko!_" the Pokémon beside Mokuba barked after the swift Gengar. Treecko was having even a harder time keeping up with his short legs and the weight of his tail.

Mokuba could imagine that Treecko had probably yelled at the Gengar to 'slow down' or to 'not go so fast,' but he swore the Pokémon actually sped up.

_Either its attitude's been rubbing off on Seto, or Seto's has been rubbing off on it._

Racing around a corner in his attempt to keep up, Mokuba suddenly felt himself step on something soft and definitely not carpet.

"_Eee!_" the softness shrieked.

"Eevee!" Mokuba shouted. Panicking, trying to get his weight off the cat-like, fox-like Pokémon, Mokuba tumbled off to one side, almost crushing Treecko instead.

He crashed onto the hardwood floor, banging his funny bone and elbow terribly.

"Ow! Oh, Eevee, I'm sorry," he apologized to the Pokémon that was now curled up on itself, trying to protect its miniature body from the unexpected attack of Mokuba's feet. "I didn't know you were there, sweetie."

_I can't believe I stepped on Eevee,_ Mokuba thought to himself. Even his Oddish couldn't compete with the furry, naïve little Pokémon when it came to cuteness.

The Eevee lifted its tail away from its face and stared at Mokuba with wide, hurt-filled eyes. The liquid brown orbs seemed to ask, in Mokuba's mind, how he could do such a cruel thing to her, causing Mokuba's stomach to churn and sink with guilt.

"Really, honey, I'm so, _so_ sorry. I didn't know you were there, and I was following Gengar, and… I'm just sorry Eevee. I don't have any more excuses." He held out his hand, palm-up, towards the Pokémon.

As stated above, Eevee was just adorable, and Mokuba often caught her chasing her own tail or slinky-ing down the stairs headfirst, having the time of her life. Mokuba's favorite was when she attempted to see the tips of her ears by turning her head and was always confused when the tips seemed to move out of the way just in time. That usually eventually led to her chasing her own tail once she saw it witching out of the corner of her eye.

_Silly little furball._

Too bad the Pokémon wasn't his.

Eevee was… an investment of sorts for Seto. The Pokémon's unique genetic codes enabling its variety of evolutions made it extremely valuable to someone like Seto who saw the benefits of so many capabilities in one place. She was just a tool to him, as most of his Pokémon were.

_Seto doesn't deserve her._ The thought had passed through Mokuba's mind often, more and more the longer Seto had her.

It wouldn't bother Mokuba so much if Seto actually showed some sort of attachment to her. But, it was Seto's opinion that, until he decided which evolution he wanted for his Eevee, that he should keep away from it in order to avoid her evolving through happiness.

Eevee uncurled herself and stuck her nose out toward Mokuba's hands inquisitively. Mokuba's lips twitched up in a grin.

Mokuba sighed and pushed his bangs back from his forehead. His Treecko had come to a standstill alongside him and was angrily biting down on the twig in its mouth. Gengar was long gone and he just hated not being able to keep up with the competition.

When Mokuba had first chosen Treecko to be his own, he actually hadn't been sure if he wanted a Pokémon that actually reminded him of his brother from time to time. But, the Treecko had already become so attached to the grounds of the mansion and it wasn't as if Mokuba had been really clicking with any of the other starters that he'd been offered. It had seemed at the time that if he couldn't choose a Pokémon for the sake of making _himself_ happy, he could choose one to make _the Pokémon_ happy.

It hadn't gone well at first. Mokuba wasn't comfortable with the idea of being a trainer and Treecko refused to respect him or his orders because of that. It got to a point where Seto had to supervise with one of his own Pokémon as a threat to give Mokuba any sort of authority over the misbehaving Treecko. Mokuba had been ready to give up when it came time for him and Treecko to try to capture another Pokémon together.

It was a complete failure on their part. Mokuba hadn't a clue as to what to do, and when he had developed a strategy, Treecko did exactly the opposite of what it had been told. It had ended up with Seto using his Nidorino to assist in their catching the Poliwag, practically doing all the work for them, and giving both Mokuba and the Treecko a piece of his mind afterwards. Mokuba had never had his brother yell at him like that before, and it had helped drive home the fact that if he didn't take command, he'd end up getting himself and his Pokémon hurt. Nidorino was one of Seto's least used Pokémon, but the way it had just stared at Treecko as if it were a disgrace to all Pokémon through its refusal to obey its trainer. Mokuba and Treecko had come to respect each other and learned to work together quickly after that, both wishing to avoid another encounter with Seto and one of his Pokémon, and, eventually, they had come to even like each other.

Now, Mokuba couldn't imagine a more loyal and friendly Pokémon than his dear friend Treecko.

Mokuba flipped out his cell phone and dialed his brother. The only reason he hadn't before was because whenever Seto disappeared, he left his cell phone behind. For someone who could be so uptight about his security, he could sometimes be so oddly dismissive of the most basic of safety measures.

Seto picked up on the second ring. "What?"

"You're Gengar is a… I don't even know what to call it. He's a ghostly version of _you,_ I guess," Mokuba answered, watching as Eevee slinked over to Treecko, nose extended as if she'd never seen him before.

"Is that a bad thing?" Seto asked, just the hint of sarcasm in his question. "What did it do this time?"

"It tried to get me lost and then ran off when I pointed out that it wouldn't be able to." Mokuba snorted as he thought back on it.

"If you'd given it time, it probably could have."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. So where are you? Your office?"

"Yes."

"It figures. I'll be there in a moment."

"Take your time." Seto hung up.

"_Tree,_" Treecko wailed plaintively. Mokuba looked down and saw that Eevee had braced her forepaws on Treecko's shoulders and her twitchy nose in Treecko's face. The reptilian Pokémon had always captivated Eevee since it was brought into the house. Her tail was waving back and forth showing her fascination.

Treecko's tail was furling and unfurling itself, showing his agitation and awkwardness.

"Eevee, could you please…?" Mokuba started, unable to continue without laughing at the distress on Treecko's face. Treecko gave him a dirty look as Eevee bounced away.

"I have to go now, Eevee, but I have someone I want you to meet later."

"_Eee!_" the Eevee squealed before racing off herself around the corner. Mokuba had no clue as to where she might be going, though he had a feeling that she just might be going to sneak into his Playroom, to play tag with Oddish or fish for his Poliwag. She could be a mischievous little Eevee.

…Maybe Mokuba should name his Pokémon? 'Poliwag' could be a mouthful to say, or even to think sometimes. Maybe he should shorten it to something easier, like 'Pog.' Pog would work.

He was already calling Bellsprout 'Lil' Sprout.' The Venonat could be… 'Nitty,' and he could figure out what to call his Oddish and Machop later.

"What do you think of 'Eek,' Treecko?" Mokuba asked.

"_Tree?_" Treecko asked, looking up at his trainer quizzically.

"Just trying out some names that could work for you," Mokuba explained, his lips quirking upward playfully.

"_Treecko,_" Treecko growled, glaring up with his lizardy yellow eyes.

Mokuba laughed. "Okay, maybe not 'Eek.' Any ideas on your part?"

"_Treecko_," the Pokémon stated definitely.

"Well, of course you'd say that," Mokuba teased.

* * *

The first thing Mokuba noticed when he walked into Seto's office was the pair of happily spiteful red eyes staring out at him from Seto's shadow. Gengar had obviously made it back.

"It's creepy how he does that, you know?" Mokuba mentioned as he came in and sat down opposite his brother. One of the red eyes winked at him before they both closed and Seto's shadow looked as if it were nothing more than that, a shadow.

"I know." Seto didn't even lift his head from fiddling with the pokéball he had disemboweled in front of him, poking at it with a screwdriver. Kaiba Corporation had a somewhat wide range of areas that it dabbled in within the business world, most, if not all, of them specific to Pokémon training. One of those areas was the manufacturing of pokéballs. Seto had made a name for himself and the new KC with a variation designed for flying Pokémon that propelled the Pokémon out of the ball so that they were launched immediately into fast flight. Everyone was always waiting for the next new invention from Kaiba Corporation that would again enhance training, and Mokuba would bet his two percent shares of Kaiba Corp. that he was watching one of those inventions being made in front of him.

"So, what did you want me for?" Mokuba finally asked after watching his brother working for a little while. Seto's Meowth was awake now, its eyes wide with enthrallment at the glittering of the innards and the screwdriver.

"I want to know what you were doing on the southern slope," Seto responded slowly, his attention being elsewhere and having to move his work as the Meowth took a swipe at it, trying to claim it as its own. Obviously a jar of pennies wasn't enough to curb the Pokémon's appetite for shimmery things. Mokuba thought he might give it a mirror next time to see what he made of the coin on his own forehead.

Treecko made a grumbling sound at the Meowth's disobedience as he climbed up onto the top of the desk. Meowth took a break from its "stalking" and gave Treecko a mild hiss before turning back to the pokéball, creeping a light bit forward. Seto glanced at the cat Pokémon and rolled his eyes before sliding the whole operation into a desk drawer and closing it. The Meowth growled in disappointment and leapt down from the desk and crawled to sulk underneath it.

"Well? What were you doing?" Seto asked, giving Mokuba his full attention.

Mokuba felt his face pulling into a gigantic grin. "We need to close the curtains," he said excitedly, jumping up from his chair. He hustled around to the windows behind Seto. In a tree planted on the inner curve of the drive that led up from the main gate sat Seto's large, evolved Spearow. The Fearow was some distance away, but its raptor vision saw Mokuba in the window and it nodded to him and clicked its beak. Mokuba nodded back before pulling the drapes shut.

Mokuba went back around to the other side of the desk. The little light that made it in from the hall reflected in Seto's eyes and, Mokuba swore, on his teeth as he smiled in the darkness.

"I named it 'Nitty,'" Mokuba announced, watching as the smile disappeared from Seto's face. He knew he would hate the name. Mokuba called his Venonat out.

"Hello, Nitty," Mokuba cooed at the Venonat. It twirled around on its clumpy feet to face Mokuba, emitting a questioning '_Ven_' at the sound of the name.

"This is my brother, Nitty. His name's Seto," Mokuba introduced, tilting his head to where Seto sat. Nitty bounced on its tiptoes trying to see over the edge of the desk, making Mokuba laugh a bit.

Seto leaned forward so that the Venonat was able to see his face. He scoffed briefly. "Were you trying to get something with even more ridiculous hair than yourself when you caught it?"

"_Ha ha_," Mokuba replied dryly.

Nitty almost seemed to paddle forward across the carpet with its giant feet to get a better look. But, as Nitty reached the desk, a pale cream, three-toed paw reached out from beneath it and took a swipe at the Venonat's purple, furry body.

Nitty jumped back with a squeal and shot off in a random direction. It ended up smacking face first into a bookcase against the southern wall, almost as if it were trying to get back to the slope where it was caught.

"Oh, poor Nitty," Mokuba got out, trying not to chuckle at the Venonat's expense. It was running its tiny, pointless hands over its face to ease the ache as it ran its antennae over the shelves it had run into. "And, bad Meowth," Mokuba added over his shoulder, at the grasping paw that still stuck out from where the rest of the Pokémon was concealed. Mokuba could swear he heard it purring.

They heard a clatter and a thump. A few seconds later, a pair of glowing red eyes came clicking out from beneath the bookshelf that Nitty had run into: Seto's Kabuto. Only a few Dome fossils were revived every year and given out as "awards" from the worldwide Board of Pokémon Affairs to people who were considered to have done beneficial work towards the betterment of human and Pokémon relations. Seto was given his four years ago around the time he took over Kaiba Corp. from Gozaburo.

The Kabuto scuttled up the side of the desk, causing Treecko to move over warily, as Mokuba recalled Nitty to his pokéball.

The room was suddenly flooded with light as Seto pulled the curtains back into place. The fossil Pokémon had come to a rest at the corner of the desk, where it always chose to sit whether it was at Seto's home office, or his office at KC.

"That was… interesting," Seto commented as he sat back down. He seemed only slightly amused.

"Yeah. I didn't think that your Meowth would do something like that." Mokuba gave Seto a nasty look.

Seto shrugged. "I think it was objecting to the name '_Nitty_.'"

"What would you call it, then?"

"_I_ wouldn't call it anything."

Mokuba sighed. "Of course not." He rolled his eyes. They rested on one of the Kabuto's spindly legs. He pointed it out. "What's that?"

Seto's eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the slip of paper caught beneath the Pokémon. Standing up, he expertly flipped the Kabuto onto its back. Mokuba winced as the two pairs of curling legs scrabbled in the air, unable to gain purchase in order to flip itself back over. Seto extracted the piece of paper from where it had been punctured and caught on Kabuto's appendage. The Kabuto had a tendency to dart across Seto's desks, scattering and picking up things along the way on its sharpened limbs.

Seto placed the Kabuto upright again, since it would be incapable of doing it itself. He read the note and made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat.

"What is it?" Mokuba asked. His Treecko hopped down from the desk, ready to go when Mokuba was.

"A reminder of a meeting I have later on in the grounds." Seto crumbled the paper and tossed it in the trash.

"Who's it with?"

"Professor Oak," Seto spat, leaning back in his chair.

"Ah." Seto hated Prof. Oak. "I'll leave you to that, then. Have _fun_," Mokuba said, backing out of the room. "We'll be in the Playroom. Bye!"

* * *

Seto sighed through his nose and rubbed his forehead to ease the wrinkles, listening as Mokuba walked down the hall, chatting with his Treecko.

That meeting with Prof. Oak was scheduled to take place half an hour from now. Seto didn't exactly _hate_ Professor Oak, but he did dislike the perpetually cheerful man.

"Meowth," he said. The Pokémon came out from under the desk and sat beside him, looking up curiously, a smug cast still left from its attack on the Venonat. "Guard," Seto commanded. The Meowth nodded and leapt back up onto the desk. It settled facing the door, its tail twitching back and forth in anticipation.

"Gengar, out." The Gengar rose from Seto's shadow and was immediately caught up in its pokéball, one that Seto had designed specifically for Ghost Pokémon but that wasn't on the market yet.

Pushing back from his desk, he stood up and headed over to the north wall. It was made of paneled wood, and at one time one of the panels had been lighter than the others, to help Gozaburo find it more easily. But, Seto had them all stained a new, darker color to make sure that no one but he would be able to tell the difference. He pressed the panel that had once been lighter, and half of the wall swung open to reveal a staircase leading down into utter blackness.

**Thanks for reading! **

**This doesn't seem to be one of my more popular fics, but I'm really enjoying the creative exercises it has me going through. So, I'll be continuing mostly with this one with perhaps the occasional oneshot added in every now and then.**


	3. Dark Places

**I don't have anything to say at the moment, so let's get on to the fic. Enjoy!**

As Seto was about to step down into the darkness, Meowth let out a warning growl and Seto turned around to see it arching its back and bristling the fur along its spine as it faced the nearly closed door. Something leaned briefly on the door, causing it to squeak and move a couple of inches before swinging back into place once whatever it was heard the Meowth growling.

Seto narrowed his eyes and did a brief pat-down of himself, running his hands over the front of his jacket, checking on the pokéballs in his possession that he stashed there on the inside. Four of the pokéballs were not in their proper place, meaning that their occupants were out. Those four would be Meowth, Fearow, Kabuto, and…

"Eevee," Seto called warningly. He wasn't in the mood to play games with her today. Not that he ever was.

Half of her face and a giant ear appeared through the small gap between the door and the jamb.

The Meowth let out a nasty snarl as Eevee took a step in, pushing the door open to let herself through. After backing up into the wall after being startled, Eevee gathered her rarely evident courage and growled back at the cat Pokémon. Seto felt his lips twitch in the slightest and had to give her a little credit, especially considering how often Meowth put her in her place. (Mokuba joked that Meowth didn't like the competition that it had when it came to being Seto's cutest Pokémon, despite how Seto objected to any of his Pokémon being considered _cute_.)

"Calm, Meowth," Seto commanded, getting the Pokémon to stop its hissing and posturing. It continued to give Eevee a nasty look.

Kabuto scuttled down the side of the desk and over to Eevee, trying to be intimidating. All of Seto's Pokémon knew that Eevee was out of favor, though they didn't seem to understand that it was through no fault on Eevee's part. Still, Seto didn't try to stop them from what some might term to be bullying. It was a lesson that Gozaburo had taught Seto that had stuck with him throughout the years that adversity created strength within those whom it was focused upon. It had worked for Seto.

But, due to Eevee's natural naivety, she sometimes didn't understand what his other Pokémon were trying to do. Right now she was reacting to Kabuto as she had with Treecko in the hall, as if she'd never seen it before. Seto thought about warning it, but he didn't. A few seconds later, Eevee wiggled her rear as the Kabuto crept closer and leapt into the air to land squarely on the Kabuto's shell, flattening it to the ground. The Kabuto tried to scuttle out from under her, but only succeeded in toting Eevee along with it, squatting beneath her light, balanced weight.

"_Boot, boot,_" the fossil muttered, getting its monotonous tone as close to alarmed and indignant as achievable. It was doubtful that Eevee would be getting off very soon now that she was upon her new mobile perch, despite Kabuto's continuing attempts to dislodge her.

Seto settled the problem in a 'brook no nonsense' manner by abruptly recalling both Pokémon to their pokéballs. The fact that so many had been out at one time, in any case, was irregular, as Seto preferred to have them near at hand if he needed them for any reason. Meowth was an exception as it was needed to guard Seto's office, and Fearow had earned his right to have free run of the house and estate, especially as it was most often found near his trainer anyway.

Turning away from the room with now only Meowth as it occupant, Seto walked down the hidden staircase and into the depths of the house, into the tunnels. It was easier to avoid the traps this way.

The booby traps placed over the estate were numerous. Dugtrios were planted _everywhere_ beneath the surface of the Kaiba estate, acting in the same manner as landmines, sensing when pressure was applied to the ground around and above them and reacting. Rather than exploding though, the approximately thirty Dugtrio (or ninety, depending on if you viewed Dugtrio to be a single or three individual Pokémon) reported any sensing they got, alerting the few human members of the security team that a possibly unauthorized person or Pokémon was on the grounds. Seto's personal, hostile Cloyster was also often on the prowl in the woods to the north and around the lake in the northwest as an extra precaution since there was no fencing in those areas as there was around the rest of the estate. Trees filled with wild Pokémon loyal to the Kaiba family were planted in strategic areas around the yard to provide aerial and visual surveillance, as well.

All of those reasons combined were why the members of the house used the tunnels. There were originally two separate systems of underground passageways, each with a route off of the property for just-in-case purposes. One system had the front yard pretty much covered, while the other, more extensive one ran beneath the virtual plains of the backyard, leading to the southern slope, the lake, and what used to be an outbuilding, practically a garden shed, but was now much more. Those virtual plains were completely barren except for close-cut grass and the spying tall trees set around the perimeter of the lawn.

An extra tunnel had been added after Gozaburo had gone that was only accessible within the house, either from Seto's own office or a closet near Mokuba playroom that connected the two already existing ones. Seto would have to take the new one in order to join up with the system that had once been inaccessible from the office. The one that was accessible led to either the edge of the forest in the north or to and beyond the gate in the west. Seto, however, wanted to go east.

He sighed to himself. It would take over five minutes just to get out from the tunnels beneath the house, and it would take up to fifteen or more to reach his destination considering all of the switchbacks and false corridors that Seto would have to look out for. But, unless he wanted to take a half an hour car ride just to have to go through a ten minute security checkpoint that would be enforced even for him, the dimly lit tunnels were his best options.

* * *

_Five years ago:_

_Seto pounded on the door of the attic twice, the signal that he'd completed the test he'd been issued. After a moment, it opened to show Gozaburo's broad silhouette framed by the light in the hall behind him. Seto narrowed his eyes and turned his face away, having gotten too used to the darkness of the attic. It wasn't until Gozaburo brusquely shoved his shoulder, almost knocking him off-balance, that he realized his adoptive father had been talking to him. His earplugs were still in to block out Spearow's cries. _

_He pulled them out and stashed them in his pocket. "What?"_

"_Don't take that cheeky tone with me," Gozaburo bit out, ticked for no reason that Seto could figure out. But, if he wasn't angry about something, he wouldn't be the Gozaburo Seto had come to know and loathe. "Where is it?"_

_Seto headed back into what he had begun to start to think of as "his" attic, feeling Gozaburo's overbearing presence following after him just a bit too closely, no, way too closely for comfort._

_Seto ended up leading them to the farthest corner of the dusty, dark room, requiring Gozaburo to pull out his penlight and use the beam to wade their way through the mess. It actually caused Seto to wind up running into more stuff, constantly seeing movement just out of the penlight's glow when there wasn't, but too worried that he might miss something that was there. _

_He scoffed to himself. It was easier being in here when he was blind. He stumbled into another stack of boxes, causing it to tumble over, and he swore he saw something with red eyes move away just as the penlight swung its way._

"_Walk straight, boy," Gozaburo barked. "And, _try_ to be quiet."_

_Seto gritted his teeth but walked on without a comment. They started to hear flapping the further they went back. They rounded a loveseat covered in a sheet and stacked with what looked like bundles old magazines or newspapers. One of the bundles had fallen to the ground recently, exposing its clean underside. Seto's Spearow had hooked its claws beneath the twine wrapped around the periodicals to keep the Pokémon from lifting off as it continued beating its wings._

_The wind currents being created were buffeting what looked like a purplish-black ball of gas, pinning it against the wooden planks of the wall, threatening to dissolve in the artificial wind. The Gastly was trapped. _

_Looking at the scene before him, Gozaburo grunted, unimpressed. "So, you used the bird's screaming to scatter every bloody creature up here, you had your choice of Pokémon to go after, and you choose to go with the weakest one you can find. Am I supposed to be impressed?" Gozaburo sniffed._

_Seto exhaled slowly. "Well, if you weren't _blind_, you'd see that it's about to evolve. So, yeah, you _should_ be impressed that I was able to use _half_ the energy to catch _twice_ the Pokémon." _

_Gozaburo smacked him upside the head. "Didn't I tell you to watch your mouth? Hurry up and capture it already, then get out. Tell the Blasters to get in here as you leave. Well, go on!"_

"_I need a pokéball," Seto ground out, stopping himself from rubbing his stinging scalp. Gozaburo never allowed Seto to have any surplus pokéballs in his possession just in case he got the idea to start building up a private army of Pokémon for his own. Consequently, Seto had only the single pokéball that housed Spearow. _

_Gozaburo made a disgusted noise, as if it were Seto's fault he didn't have more than the one. He retrieved a spar from an inner pocket and threw it to Seto, purposely coming up short so that Seto would have to bow down to retrieve it from the filthy floor. _

_Seto paused, but eventually bent down to pick it up. The Gastly went willingly enough into the pokéball, probably glad to escape the gusts that the Spearow continued creating._

"_And, get the bloody bird out of here," Gozaburo commanded, his voice muffled by the white handkerchief he'd brought up to hold before his nose in an attempt to block out the dust that had been disturbed by the Spearow's billowing. _

_Seto lifted his left arm as he held Gozaburo's mustard gaze, calling the Spearow to him silently._

_Seto backed up once the Pokémon was settled on the falconer's glove. Once Seto was far enough away from the threat of Gozaburo, he faced forward into the darkness and briskly walked towards the door of the attic._

_A line of about a dozen men dressed in black were outside, many of them, over half, having to stand on the narrow stairs that led up to the attic. They were Gozaburo's private force of trainers, used to capture as many Pokémon as Gozaburo could get his hands on. They were the Blasters. _

_The first man in line raised an eyebrow at him, showing no emotion at the sight of a new pokéball in the young master's hand._

"_He says to get in there," Seto informed the line, jerking his head in indication back to the shadowy room. Spearow clicked his beak in their direction before turning its head. _

_The first man in line nodded before leading the rest into the gloom, and Seto himself started down the stairs, ignoring the Blasters passing him by and the screams of the Ghost Pokémon already beginning. _

* * *

Seto found Prof. Oak on the third level below ground of what had once been an outbuilding, what was known as the "Hoenn Floor."

"Professor Oak, come to get a new batch?" Seto asked, his tone bored and not quite respectful, not particularly caring for the man.

Prof. Oak jumped up, startling a Mudkip that he had been petting and trying to coax into an open pokéball, one that had been designed by Kaiba Corp. specifically for starters who'd never dealt with one before.

"Oh, Mr. Kaiba! Why, yes, yes I am." He gave a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. Seto knew he made Professor Oak nervous; it was one of his consolations for having to deal with the perpetually cheerful professor. "And, once again, I must compliment you on your fine facilities, and thank you for having them in the first place."

"Hm, yeah." Though, Seto had to admit, the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds was one of the best in the world, as well as one of the most secure. That was what the outbuilding had been converted to, though there was no simple outbuilding any longer, but a domed security checkpoint that didn't nearly betray the true size of the institution it operated over that contained an elevator and was surrounded by a moat and commandeered over half of the estate's defense measures. The facility was also underground with each level devoted to a separate region instead of just a single region for the entire breeding grounds, and another level that acted in the same way as Mokuba's Playroom, allowing all of the "babies" to socialize as they grew to a mature enough age to be sent out to the appropriate training posts to be chosen by start-up trainers.

It was imperative that the babies be kept safe and untainted as they grew up, else they become corrupted and potentially disobedient towards their trainers, as well as loyal to someone they shouldn't be. Gozaburo had ruined a lot of Pokémon that way, when they were just infants. So, the KEBG was a secret to the general public, but was still held to strict guidelines by the Bureau of Pokémon Affairs, a government agency that was designed to look after all the aspects in which humans and Pokémon interacted within the world. Because of the breeding grounds and Kaiba Corporation, Seto was well ingrained into day to day operations of the BPA, of which Professor Oak was a prominent advisor to.

"They seem to be an exceptionally happy group," Prof. Oak commented, smiling as a dozen or so Treecko dangled from and leaped about the branches of an actual living tree growing beneath the sunlight replicating illumination, placed off-center of the middle of the room. Seto briefly wondered if any of them were related to Mokuba's.

"Being unaware of the outside world can do that to you," Seto dryly pointed out.

Professor Oak laughed awkwardly. "I think you might give yourself a little more credit."

Seto raised an eyebrow. "The only credit I take is for getting Gozaburo out of the way before he could get to them."

Professor Oak became suddenly very serious and official. "As you know, the Bureau of Pokémon Affairs is still on the lookout for your adoptive father, and we will be until he's found."

Seto sighed. "I take that to mean that they have no leads, even if their commitment is just as strong as it was five years ago," Seto surmised, growing bored with the less-than-concrete answer as to where Gozaburo had gone.

"Actually," Prof. Oak began, catching Seto's full attention. "There has been somewhat of a breakthrough, but…" As Seto's breathing stopped, Professor Oak clammed up and looked around them, at all the little carefree Pokémon that had no idea what dangers were around them, bearing down on them. A noticeably curious Torchic was paying particular attention to the two human men in its midst, head-cocked and eyes wide as it creeped closer and closer, step by step. "Perhaps, Mr. Kaiba, this would be a conversation best to be held out of earshot of the, er, _children_?"

Seto didn't want to wait to hear any information that had to do with the whereabouts of his adoptive father, but as the Torchic crept close enough to give an experimental tug to a leather strap attached to Seto's boot, he had to admit that the breeding grounds was no place to so much as mention that bastard's name.

Seto reluctantly nodded. "We need to go to Kaiba Corp. to fill out your withdrawal forms anyway. We'll take the Town Car."

"What an excellent idea!" Professor Oak jubilantly declared. Seto resisted rolling his eyes.

"You have everything you came for?" he asked instead, already turning away, causing the Torchic to emit a squealing '_Tor_' and hurry back to a safer vantage point. If Seto remained, though, he bet the Torchic would be back soon enough.

"Yes. Let's be off."

* * *

"Hey, Duke said, smacking his partner with the back of his hand. "They're here."

"Oh…?" Bandit Keith leveled his seat vertical again from where it had been reclined as they waited in the car. "_Yup_, that's them," he said after taking a gander himself.

Duke rolled his emerald eyes. "I _know_, Keith."

Bandit Keith laughed lowly himself.

Seto and Prof. Oak were stepping from the Town Car onto the curb outside the Kaiba Corporation building. Duke and Bandit Keith were parked on the opposite side of the street in a discreet, almost-clunker of a car.

"And, he even has that Pokémon professor with him. Won't Gozaburo be interested in hearing about _that._"

**Thank you for reading! Hopefully, the next chapter will be out as quickly as this one was.**


	4. Too Little, Too Soon

**The rating was upped in this chapter because of the flashback that occurs. It's nothing too graphic, but it does involve some animal cruelty. Also, that flashback takes up most of this chapter, but the animal cruelty part doesn't take place until the very end of it.**

**I've started a blog, and on it I've posted a map of the Kaiba estate as I've envisioned it for this fic. If you're interested in referring to that as you read, it's at zquill(dot)blogspot(dot)com. The link's also in my profile if you'd rather use that, and it's listed as my homepage. **

"What're they doing?" Bandit Keith asked.

"Can't you look for yourself?" Duke scoffed. Seto Kaiba and Prof. Oak were waiting on the curb as the Town Car pulled away and Roland with two members of the building's security came over to escort the two. Duke absentmindedly pulled out his cell phone as he watched. "I have to contact Gozaburo—"

Bandit Keith's hand snapped out and ripped the phone from Duke's hand. Duke looked over with startled eyes, but Keith hadn't even seemed to look over before he'd grabbed the phone, still in the exact, relaxed position as he'd been in before, with his feet up on the dash and an arm behind his head.

"We don't use cell phones around Kaiba Corp. headquarters, newbie. Seto's a whiz at the techie crap, and you know just know that, being the paranoid punk that he is, that he's got something going on that tracks cell phone activity. No, we go old school when we're this close to KC."

That being said, Bandit Keith put his feet down and leaned forward, dragging something out from under the seat. It was a lidless box, and inside was one of the oldest walkie talkies that Duke had ever seen. He was surprised it wasn't being carried around on the back of some soldier, it was so outdated.

"We're talking Gozaburo's version of old school, then?" Duke commented sarcastically. That was the only reason he could think of to have such archaic equipment: Gozaburo's nostalgia for the good ol' days.

Bandit Keith paused and, even through the sunglasses, Duke just knew that the man was glaring at him with the intent to kill. Duke gulped and fiddled with his single die earring. Suddenly, Bandit Keith smiled, though it almost seemed more of a snarl. "Now you're getting it, Devlin. Everything we do, we do his way. No matter how _old-fashioned _it seems to us, we always do it his way. Got it?"

Duke cleared his throat and gave a hoarse, "Yeah." He went back to looking out the window at Kaiba Corporation. Seto Kaiba and Prof. Oak had already gone inside by then.

Duke may only have been Bandit Keith's partner for a few months, but that was plenty of time to get to know that he, as well as the other few Blasters left, had a near-religious reverence directed toward Gozaburo Kaiba. The very name 'Kaiba' was practically sacred, and it was made clear that under no circumstances were those who worked for Gozaburo allowed to call his son anything but 'Seto'. All in all, Duke should have known better than to even try to attempt a joke at the old man's expense.

He sighed quickly and quietly through his nose as Bandit Keith began relaying the intel they'd gotten on Seto and Prof. Oak himself through the ancient walkie talkie.

_This had better be worth my time._

* * *

_Five years ago:_

_As Seto put his foot on the first step down from the attic, one of the Blasters, the youngest and the one who brought up the rear on the group's way up the stairs and into the Ghost Pokémon-filled room._

_Seto didn't react other than stopping and rubbing his thumb against one of Spearow's toes to reassure it and keep it from attacking the Blaster. _

"_Nice job, kid. I think even the old man was impressed when that bird of yours started screaming its lungs out." The speaker flipped his head back, causing his blonde hair to resettle itself in a 'sexy' manner. _

"_Whatever, Keith," Seto replied. He didn't want anything to do with the sleazy Blaster. _It's so fitting that 'Blaster' be so close to 'bastard,'_ Seto thought, still looking straight ahead, ignoring Keith Howard beside him and the screaming Pokémon behind him._

"_Seriously," Bandit Keith tried again. "You're finally shaping up to something respectable. You might even be a Blaster one day, if you keep at it." Bandit Keith chuckled to himself, as if there were some kind of inside joke hidden within the statement._

_Seto felt his face screw up. "God, I hope not," he said, tearing his arm from Bandit Keith's grasp. His Spearow squawked as it rebalanced itself, before disdainfully turning its back to the Blaster. _

_As Seto started pacing quickly down the narrow staircase, he heard Bandit Keith call down to him, "Oh, that's right. You don't want to be part of us. You just want to rule over us like your daddy! Good luck with that; we'll never follow anyone but him."_

_Seto "puhhed" at the incredulity of the statement. As if it wasn't clear by now that what he wanted was the _opposite_ of what Gozaburo had._

"…_I should go see Mokuba," Seto mentioned unenthusiastically to his Spearow once he was sure Bandit Keith had left to go join the fun. The kid would probably want to know his brother was okay. But…_

_Seto reached the bottom of the stairs and came out into the open, bright hallway that circled the entire perimeter of the third floor of the Kaiba mansion. This particular stretch faced the expansive backyard to the east of the house. From here you could see all the way across to the practice gym Gozaburo had had built that would eventually become the check-point for Seto's breeding grounds. You could also see the lake from here._

_Seto's eyes fastened on the water and he felt his Spearow give his shoulder an persuading nudge with its beak, as if it were encouraging him to go. That settled it. Mokuba could wait; he'd just think that Seto was still going through the exercise Gozaburo had planned for him. _

_Seto made his way down another two flights of stairs and headed for the tunnel entrance located near Mokuba's future solarium-turned-Playroom. Relatively near, at least. Close for the Kaiba mansion, far for almost anywhere else. _

_Seto was obsessed with the lake, which he hoped was a fact that, despite the strength of the fixation, he'd been able to keep secret from the other members of the household, his little brother included. Mokuba was a sweetie who'd never intentionally hurt his older brother, but he was a sweetie with a big mouth._

_Seto reached the tunnel entrance (that he wasn't supposed to know anything about). He knew his Spearow wouldn't like being once more in a cramped space, but only Gozaburo and a few of the more senior Blasters knew of the tunnels, and Seto didn't want to be followed by anyone who might be tailing him on his father's orders. Seto slipped into a faux-closet, closing the door behind him, and lifted a barely discernable hatch before dropping down and shutting the trapdoor behind him. Spearow remained placed on his left forearm the entire time, its stiffness the only indication of its dislike of the space. Seto again rubbed its toes in comfort. _

_None of the tunnels were straight from Point A to Point B on the Kaiba estate. First, Seto travelled a quick, right angled clockwise spiral, then merely followed the tunnel. He ignored the first fork in the passageway that went off to the left and travelled for a while longer, but took the second branching that presented itself to the left. Just a bit later, Seto emerged from the tunnel near a large bolder by the lake's edge. When the weather became rainy, this part of the tunnel had a tendency to have layers of moisture on the cement walls and puddles pooled on the floor. _

_As Seto bent down to close this other secreted trapdoor, his Spearow took off and began to scout the area for him. It was a pattern they'd formed ever since Seto first became enraptured by a certain ripple in the water that would occasionally take place whenever he was around this area. _

_A couple minutes later, Spearow let out a shriek, confirming that the area was clear of any of Gozaburo's informants, though it continued to fly about and keep watch. Seto stood up from where he'd swayed crouched by the boulder and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to unwind before turning his attention to the water and— _

_There was that ripple again!_

_It was a known fact that a fair variety of Pokémon lived in the lake. At the moment, a few each of Staryu, Goldeen, and Horsea, their evolutions, a handful of Poliwag, a smattering of Magikarp, and possibly some Shellder and Krabby made the area their home. Pretty soon, Gozaburo would order the Blasters to come out here and do another purging since the population had built up again. But, nothing in there was so large as to be capable of the movement Seto consistently saw whenever he came out here. No Gyarados, Dragonair, or Lapras would be allowed to wander free for any length of time in this area, and Seto swore he always saw blue scales or skin accompanying the swells._

_Whatever it was, it was large and had been cunning enough to avoid all of Gozaburo's minions' attempts to catch anything and everything worth catching within the lake time and time again. _

_Before Seto realized exactly what he was doing, he had his glove, shoes, and socks off and was taking his first steps across the rocky shoreline and into the lake. The rocks became thick with algae just a few inches in, and Seto felt his feet sliding and skidding the further he waded in. But, he gritted his teeth and kept on walking. He was sick of wondering what the hell it was that disturbed the water whenever he got near the lake. He _wasgoing_ to find out!_

_The water was lapping at his waist when the slippery rocks finally got the better of him. His right foot shot out from under him and he went crashing down into the clear, if dark, blue water. He heard himself give an involuntary yelp as it happened and mentally kicked himself for it as he momentarily settled on the bottom. As mentioned before, he had no doubt that Gozaburo had someone, either Pokémon or human, keeping an eye on him at all times, or trying to anyway, and that brief cry may have given away his position. He probably wouldn't be allowed out to the lake again if he were caught._

_Seto pushed himself up from the lakebed and allowed his head to break the surface. His heart was hammering from the unexpected fall and the anxiety that he may be found out. He remained half-crouched in the water, waiting for Spearow to pass overhead and signal again that the coast was clear._

_As he waited though, a calmness he'd never felt since coming to live with Gozaburo and the Blasters drifted over him. It relaxed him and made him become buoyant both literally and figuratively. For several minutes, Seto just lay on his back, his nose, mouth, and eyes just barely clearing the surface of the lake. Everything was suddenly so peaceful…_

_Just as Spearow came into view dozens of feet above him, its cry to tell him that all was well muffled by the water in his ears, Seto felt something smooth and ever so slightly slimy slide along beneath his fingers tips on either side and across his lower back. It took a long time, indicating the size of the creature, whatever it was, to move through the water beneath Seto, and Spearow kept on moving closer and closer, worried and curious as to why his trainer was not responding. _

_Seto was paralyzed by the unexplainable and forced tranquility he felt. All he could do was watch as his Spearow circled, getting nearer, until the bird suddenly crashed into Seto's chest several moments after the feeling of the creature skimming along under Seto's touch had disappeared. Again, Seto was plunged beneath the surface of the water, this time by the Spearow's tackle. Opening his eyes underwater, Seto swore he saw the tail of something serpentine gliding away through the haze of bubbles his most recent submergence had created._

_Seto quickly kicked to the surface, his arms wrapped tightly about his Spearow. He gulped in several breaths, having lost all of his air when Spearow knocked it out of him. His Spearow was making coughing-like sounds as it rid its lungs of the water it had inhaled after plowing into its trainer. It had to have been close to panicking to plow into Seto like that to free him from his trance. _

"_Thank you, Spearow," Seto rasped. Now that the calming force had been removed, the terror he'd felt at being unable to take control of his own body was making itself known. Seto decided then that he would rather have a life of stress and resentment motivating him than one where he was too contented to do anything at all._

_His Spearow was trying to glare up at him from where it was still half in the water, but was beginning to shiver as the water soaked his feathers and was feeling disoriented and completely out of place in the aquatic setting. Seto quickly began making his way onto the shore where they could both dry off before heading back to the mansion._

_As Seto sat his Spearow down on a waist-high rock and it began to shake its feather free of the damp, Seto heard a far-off jangling sound. He and the Spearow both froze and the clanging came again from the same distance. Spearow was incapable of flying over to see what it was from above now, but Seto was reasonably sure that someone employed by Gozaburo would have more stealth that to create such a noise once, much less twice. _

_When the sound came across a third time, Seto went to look for what was making the rattling, walking around the bank, leaving Spearow behind, checking beneath shrubs and behind rocks. But, when he eventually found it a good ways away from where he had been, he wished he hadn't and had to stop himself from throwing up._

_The noise was now coming from just a few feet away, out from under a blooming yellow forsythia bush._

_A Meowth, the one that would eventually become Seto's Meowth, was trapped there by means of a fox trap that had the Kaiba Corp. logo soldered onto it. The metal teeth of the contraption had bitten down on the Pokémon's left front leg, and the whole thing was chained to a peg inserted deep into the ground. The Meowth's attempts to tear itself free had worsened the damage initially done by the trap, and Seto was pretty sure he could see its bones and tendons through the blood. _

_The Meowth caught wind of Seto and whirled to snarl at him, the sound breaking off into a whimper as the trap dug into its twisted leg, causing more blood to leak out and stain its mangled paw even more so. If it wasn't freed in the next few hours, it just might knaw itself free in its determination to get away from the cruel, inhumane trap. _

_That was it. Absolutely any vestiges of the calmness Seto had experienced were utterly gone. Gozaburo had gone too far this time, and Seto knew he couldn't abide by his father's pitiless, brutal rule any longer._

* * *

"So, about Gozaburo—"

Seto made a brisk, sharp motion with his hand, cutting Prof. Oak off before he could say anymore.

They were walking into Seto's office at the top of the Kaiba Corp. building, but were being followed by Roland, Kaiba's secretary, two members of the security team, and the payroll administrator from the copyright division, who also doubled as the payroll administrator for the secret breeding ground.

Professor Oak may have invented the Pokédex, but Kaiba Corporation continued to improve it exponentially every time a new version came onto the market. Nevertheless, they had to pay the professor for that privilege, which was one of the reasons why the administrator was there.

But, rather than accepting money, Professor Oak took it in trade. Other breeding grounds (inferior breeding grounds), demanded high prices for their baby Pokémon, and the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds was no different. However, KEBG didn't charge a complete fortune either. And, Prof. Oak was given a discount of sorts. Everything depended on the number of baby Pokémon born in each regional floor and how many of each individual type, and also the demand for the types. Still, Professor Oak never paid full price for Pokémon, even the Pokémon he acquired for other posts besides his own.

As Seto took a seat behind his desk, he took one of his pokéballs from inside his jacket and released his Kabuto onto his desk where it took up a watchful presence on the corner. He knew the way it would occasionally scuttle across the desktop unnerved guests and members of the company, especially because the Kabuto had a mischievous streak, too, and would occasionally use its scuttling to scatter Seto's papers around, which endeared the Pokémon to Mokuba, but made a mess for everyone else. But, the BPA had presented Kaiba with it, and he felt he deserved to show it off.

For the next fifteen minutes, Prof. Oak, working with Roland and the payroll administrator, tallied up the number of babies Prof. Oak had picked out, figured the cost of each one depending on that day's calculations for the separate types, and wrote down the current intentions for each one: where they were going, if there were already promised to a certain trainer, who that trainer was, etc. Kaiba's secretary made notes of the entire transaction.

Finally, they finished up and Roland and the secretary left to file the various forms, and the two members of the security took the filled pokéballs back down to the car where they would continue to guard them until Prof. Oak left. Seto and the professor were left alone.

Seto leaned back and lifted an eyebrow. "About Gozaburo…" He waved his hand in a circular motion. '_Get on with it_.'

"Oh, yes! Now, I have to admit that the Bureau cannot be _one hundred_ percent sure that Gozaburo is behind this… But, the similarities are _so_ close that I would personally stake my reputation on it being him." Seto had never seen Prof. Oak look so serious.

"What would those similarities be?" Seto asked, leaning forward.

"Several areas around the nearby regions that were once highly populated with Pokémon now barely have a Caterpie or Pidgey between them. A lot of criminals have suddenly stopped their normal activities and have been seen in those same regions. And," Prof. Oak took a deep breath, "several trainers who had just come into possession of their starter Pokémon have reported them being stolen, and some of those starters have shown up again with sudden unfounded aggressiveness and debilitating nervousness showing up in their behavior that wasn't there before."

Seto took a deep breath of his own. It was all so familiar, being Gozaburo's previous modus operandi. If they weren't dealing with Gozaburo, then it was certainly a very skilled copycat.

"He, if it really is him," Prof. Oak continued, "is calling himself and the people working for him 'Team Rocket.'

Seto narrowed his eyes. "The Blasters."

"Yes, we think that the members of the Blasters were the foundation of this new organization. Thanks to you, we have most of their names and have them on our watch list. Actually, thanks to you, most of them are in custody!" Prof. Oak smiled hugely, but Seto didn't join him. "Of the original fourteen Blasters, currently only six of them are still at large, and we know where three of them are; we're just waiting to see if they can lead us to any others who might be violating BPA law. Keith Howard, Carl Dennis, and Frederick Ambley are the only people off of our radar, but that's only a matter of time." Prof. Oak ended with a chuckle.

"…All it takes is Gozaburo to start something horrible. The Blasters themselves were just one of his creations; they themselves don't actually matter," Seto muttered grimly, tapping his fingers against his chin. He seemed to have not have heard anything that the Professor had just said. "If we want to stop more of this sort of thing from happening, we have to get rid of my father above all else."

"Maybe you shouldn't continue referring to him as your father?" Prof. Oak cautiously suggested.

Seto's eyes flashed icily as he focused on the other man. "I do _not_ need someone lecturing me on my view of Gozaburo Kaiba, Professor Oak."

"Er, yes. My apologies." Prof. Oak cleared his throat and looked away from the cold glare Seto was still giving him.

"Uhm, in any case—"

"In any case, what is the BPA doing to find _my father_?" Seto asked with his teeth bared.

"W-we're doing our best—"

"Which tells me absolutely _nothing_," Seto interrupted impatiently.

"Mngh… Well, um, we do have _something_ we're working on. But, we need secrecy; it's highly important to the integrity of the mission—"

"'Mission.' You've sent someone on a "_secret mission_" to investigate _my_ father, and I'm not allowed to know about it?"

"W-well, you see, we thought that having someone who knew everything about the way Gozaburo operated would make them stand out and put them under suspicion," Oak tried to explain to the incredulous and furious Seto Kaiba.

"Everyone, his sons, his Blasters, his Pokémon, his own goddamn _shadow_, is a person of suspicion in Gozaburo's eyes. You hope to send some inexperienced goofball in to infiltrate a now global organization that corrupts and twists the minds and personalities of _baby_ Pokémon into rabid, subservient beasts. What the hell are you people in the BPA thinking?" Seto was on his feet now, leaning over his desk much like a rabid beast himself. Prof. Oak was trapped in his seat, his hands gripping the arms of the chair with bleached knuckles.

Prof. Oak opened his mouth to say something, or maybe just gape, but Seto was way too close to snapping, if he hadn't already.

"Get out, Prof. Oak, before I take those baby Pokémon back and set them on you."

**Thanks for reading! The next chapter is possibly going to be a bit shorter than the ones so far, though, since it's not written yet, I can' be definite about it. But, hey, maybe that means it will be out quicker.**

'**BPA' stands for a lot of stuff when you go onto Wikipedia (luckily nothing bad), and it kind of makes me slightly ashamed of not looking up the abbreviation before I chose 'Bureau of Pokémon Affairs' as the title for the organization. However, it is done, and, even though I'm a little embarrassed, I kind of like the official sound of it, too. **


	5. Beak Me!

**There is some more mild animal cruelty in the first of the two flashbacks in this chapter, and that first one takes place before the ones in previous chapters.**

"Snide little bastard."

"Aww, are you talking about _me?_" Bandit Keith asked as he strode into the room. The newbie, Duke, trailed after him, doing his best to take in everything in the room. Duke's eyes finally rested on the glaring features of the man behind the desk at the opposite end of the office.

"No," the angry man replied. "I'm talking about my traitorous, soft-hearted _twit_ of a son who seems to think he can get away with anything he wants to, now that I'm gone."

"Ah." Bandit Keith whipped off his sunglasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his studded denim jacket. "Pity. I like talking about me."

_We're all aware,_ Duke thought to himself, rolling his eyes and smirking quietly.

"He was talking with Oak again?" Gozaburo asked.

"Yes, just like we relayed to you," Bandit Keith confirmed, becoming ever so slightly business-like.

"What are they doing in there?" Gozaburo actually expected an answer.

Duke looked to Bandit Keith for some guidance here. Didn't Gozaburo realize that they had no way of knowing that information? But, Keith looked fairly sure of himself, so…

Bandit Keith lazily dropped himself into a chair across the desk from Gozaburo. There was only the one other chair and it was a small room, so Duke shuffled over to a wall, unable to maintain his normal strut around these two particular forces, and leaned against it. He was kind of glad he was being ignored at this point.

"What they're doing is something that requires a troop of bodyguards rather than just that putz Roland, like they did for when it was merely Pokedex-related business."

"Go on." Gozaburo leaned forward in his desk.

"They had a bag with them again."

"Do we have any idea of what's in it?"

"Nope," Keith cheerfully said. "We need to find out how to either intercept the bag or get a look inside."

"Excuse me," Duke interrupted, trying very hard to keep himself from snorting at their conversation. "But, why do we even care about a bag?"

The temperature in the room seemed to plummet, and Duke knew he should have just kept his mouth shut.

"We want the bag because we want to know what Seto is up to," Bandit Keith began slowly, enunciating clearly as if for a simpleton. "No one else is ever seen leaving or entering the Kaiba Corp. building with something like that, and with the professor being so wrapped up with the Bureau of Pokémon Affairs, it's probably something big that involves Pokémon in such a way that we could profit from it. Or—" Bandit Keith smiled cruelly "—just take Seto down a peg or two. _That_ would be motivation enough on its own."

Gozaburo seemed to get a slight smile at the idea but slipped from his face easily enough. "And, yet we still need to find a way to do it."

A silence choked the air in the room while the leader of Team Rocket thought. Duke was used to tension being palpable in a room full of people who were making decisions that could turn the world on its head. But, it was still strange in a horrible, fascinating way to be in a tension-filled room where the people were making decisions that were meant to turn the world on its head _on purpose_ rather than as an afterthought. He couldn't help but fidget a little, rubbing his shoulders against the wall uncomfortably and putting his hands in his pockets and withdrawing them repeatedly.

"First off," Gozaburo abruptly barked, "I want the new addition, the one who spent time in the BPA to get in here."

Duke pushed himself from the wall and cleared his throat uneasily after being rebuffed. "Um, that would be me… sir."

Gozaburo's eyes widened slightly and a half-there sneer came to his worn face. "You don't seem the type to even be considered for placement as one of their agents."

Duke cleared his throat again. "Nevertheless, sir, I was, and I was good at my job, too."

"Until you were caught beating your Charmander," Bandit Keith corrected jovially, his exposed eyes crinkling at the edges with his creepily childlike glee. He seemed to enjoy humiliating his new partner, especially in front of the boss.

"Yeah… until then," Duke acknowledged looking down at his shoes.

"Well, ya came to the right place. It's not like anyone will judge you here," Keith commented kicking his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle. "It's not like we haven't all done it," he tacked on.

Duke had to hide his wince. "What do you need me to do, Mr. Kaiba?"

Gozaburo watched Duke for a moment. "I need you to work your BPA agent magic and find a way to keep a watch on my son."

Duke blinked. "Wait, whoa. I don't know if I can. I mean, if we can't even use cell phones around the Kaiba Corp. building, then how am I supposed to—"

"Just find a way!" Gozaburo shouted. Bandit Keith's smile grew even wider as he saw the newbie jump and squirm. It took more than three months to get used to Gozaburo Kaiba's sudden rages. It took more than three years even. Bandit Keith had known Gozaburo for a little over five years, and that seemed to be about the right amount of time, though he was still _occasionally_ caught off guard, but, at this point, it was only occasionally that the rages were directed at him, anyway.

"Yes, sir!" Duke shouted back in alarm. "Is there anything that you're, uh, specifically looking for…?" Duke shook his head confusedly.

"Just spy for a while, and after you report back the first few times, I'll let you know if you're on the right track," Gozaburo replied coldly.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba."

"Get out."

Bandit Keith hummed a little tune to himself as Duke was forced from the room. When the door shut behind him, Keith asked, "Aren't you going to warn him about how protective Seto's bird is of him?"

"No. Let the punk figure it out for himself," Gozaburo roughly answered.

Keith shrugged. He wasn't attached to his partner, so what did he care? All that mattered was whatever goal Team Rocket currently had in their sights, which was whatever goal Gozaburo had in _his_ sights.

"So, what else are we going to do?"

"We're going to keep an eye on the punk," Gozaburo answered.

Bandit Keith's brows furrowed. "Duke the Punk or your son the Punk?"

"We're going to keep an eye on Duke while he keeps an eye on Seto. I don't trust anyone who has ever been on the side of the BPA, and this wouldn't be the first time they've tried to infiltrate one of my projects, if that is what he's doing here."

"Yeah, I don't trust him either," Keith agreed. "Still, if your son's Fearow catches Duke and he's _not_ a BPA-brat, then we lose what could potentially be original Blaster material."

"I know," Gozaburo growled. "I never should have given him that bloody bird in the first place."

* * *

_Five years ago:_

"…_What are you staring for, boy? Take it already," Gozaburo commanded, proffering the 'it' roughly. _

_Seto continued just watching for a moment more before he began shaking his head slowly. _

_Gozaburo gritted his teeth. "I thought you wanted to become a trainer, Seto. This is the only chance you have for that while you're in __**my**__ house." Gozaburo again shook the 'it,' causing it to give an angry, strangled squawk. _

"_Stop hurting it," Seto whispered._ _His eyes were on the floor. Not because he was cowed by Gozaburo, but because he was watching the blood dripping down from 'it,' creating a small puddle on the floor. _

_Gozaburo smirked, finding his way in. Thank the gods the boy was still a pussy. Once more, Gozaburo jiggled 'it.'_

"_If you don't like what I'm doing, take it off my hands. Man up, boy."_

_Seto looked up and looked into his father's pitiless eyes. "If I take it, is it going to kill me?"_

_Gozaburo laughed mockingly despite the seriousness of Seto's question. The boy knew what Gozaburo and his Blasters could turn previously innocent and kind Pokémon into. _

"_Does it really matter considering that it might be your little brother getting this Pokémon instead of you? And, I can guarantee that it will be quite murderous should that be the case."_

_The previously aloof look on the brat's face turned to one of fright and hatred. Without looking away, the boy reached out and tore the runner from the table that he had been studying at, scattering his textbooks to the floor, and wrapped the runner around his hand as well as he could before reaching out with it._

_A battered Spearow held upside down by its bound feet hung from Gozaburo's grip, like a chicken being taken to have its head cut off, its red wings outstretched and dangling. The Pokémon had been caught in one of the many barbwire fences strung up all across the southern slope and some barbs were still imbedded in its left shoulder, and twine had been wrapped around its head and beak to keep it from attacking everyone who'd handled it up to this point. The bird Pokémon had some fight in him and there were several places where the twine had cut into the skin from the Spearow's efforts to snap. Gozaburo had seen the Pokémon for the first time that morning and seen its similarities to his eldest adopted son, deciding then that if Seto could make the battered bird respectable, it was time for him to start his life as a trainer. _

_Gozaburo watched sneeringly as Seto took hold of the abused and dangling bird, and immediately the Spearow began the struggle and flap its wing, despite its damaged shoulder. _

"_Hold it steady, boy!"Gozaburo snapped. _

"_What have you been doing to it?" Seto gritted out, keeping his face turned away from the unbound, thrashing wings of the Pokémon. _

_Gozaburo's lips twisted. "It wasn't me. One of the new Blasters may have had some fun with it before I got around to seeing if it was worth any effort." _

"_Any of __**my**__ effort," Seto corrected, still watching the bird with a look of mixed disgust and horror. _

"_My effort, too, boy. I have to teach you how to train that thing." Gozaburo flicked a finger at the slowly exhausting Spearow. "I'm not so cruel as to just leave you to your own devices in the middle of unknown territory."_

_Seto gave his father a disbelieving look before turning back to the bird and muttering something under his breath._

"_Speak up!" Gozaburo shouted, startling the boy and the bird._

_The Spearow began shrieking and fighting Seto with renewed energy, seeming to spur the anger that had been so valiantly held back within Gozaburo's son._

"_I said," Seto shouted back, barely keeping hold of the bird, "that I don't believe that you're not that cruel for a __**second**__, and I'd prefer to be left to my own devices, anyway!" _

_Gozaburo raised an eyebrow, having thought that Seto should know better by now, and saw more than felt his hand whapping across his son's face._

_He'd always had large hands and had almost always had calluses on them. Combined, they made for quite a wallop to the whole of the left side of Seto's face that delivered a lot of pain to the thirteen-year-old but relatively little to Gozaburo._

_Seto went tumbling to the floor, the Spearow with him. To the boy's credit, he didn't let go of the bird, but now the bird had leverage to try to take a chunk out of Seto's wrist. In the end, it could only open its beak enough to give the boy a slight nip. Gozaburo doubted that his son even felt the bite in his mad scramble to keep the bird under control._

_He ended up with the runner wrapped around the bird's body rather than his own hand, with the bird's claws sunk into his thigh and one of Seto's hands keeping the bird's beak completely shut._

"_You're going to need a __**lot**__ of training to be anywhere near decent," Gozaburo commented, his eyes half-lidded and bored just to add insult to Seto's bleeding injuries. "First thing first, get the barbed wire out of that bird's shoulder. I don't believe that it will make it any easier to tame, but you want the ruddy thing to fly. It's worthless otherwise… A lot like you." _

* * *

_Three months later__:_

_Gozaburo watched as Seto backed away from him on his way out of the attic. The boy wasn't stupid; he knew how badly Gozaburo reacted when he saw people cheeky enough to fearlessly turn their backs to him. _

_Seto did end up turning his back to his father, but that was when he was far enough away to not be hit by a pokéball in the back of the head and have whatever vicious Pokémon that was concealed within erupt on top of him. Gozaburo watched through the various stacks of boxes and the sheet-covered furniture and saw the Spearow run its beak over and through the boy's hair lovingly. _

_Gozaburo's squinty yellow eyes narrowed even further in disgust at the display. Pokémon were __**not**__ pets. They were tools, better yet, weapons. Gozaburo made his living selling that idea. _

_The Kaiba Corporation under his rule was one that taught the more mercenary trainers how to use their Pokémon to their best advantage by making sure that the idiots didn't anthropomorphize the beasts and encouraging those same beasts' more vicious and aggressive tendencies. The results were trainers and Pokémon who were unafraid of making the most of what was given them. Almost all of the people turned out of Kaiba Corporation were now either among the top trainers in the world… or in jail._

_The BPA had been on Gozaburo's case for years once they noticed the correlation between people those who had been "educated" at KC and those who had been sent to prison for abuse of their Pokémon. They couldn't prove that Gozaburo was doing anything illegal (he'd paid off enough people within the bureau to have gained plenty of advanced warning of whenever an inspection was planned), but they were annoying pests that could potentially bring Gozaburo down should they find out about the other illicit activities Kaiba Corp. had going on around the edges. Such as the black market selling of Pokémon caught through means in violation of BPA law. _

_Speaking of those means, the Blasters he used to carry them out seemed to have entered the attic. A Pokémon screamed, and Gozaburo saw a flash of movement before a Haunter flew past his head with a rampaging Graveler in pursuit, knocking over everything in its way. It bounded onto the loveseat, knocking over the remaining newspapers and magazines there; Gozaburo heard a crack as something in the couch broke under the Pokémon's weight. From there it launched itself again into the air and snagged the Haunter from its flight path. They crash to the floor and rolled out of sight, the Haunter continuing to shriek. _

_Gozaburo turned away with disinterest, wondering mildly as he walked to the exit how it seemed all the Pokémon caught by his Blasters seemed to know that something was "wrong" with the manner in which they were being caught. Seto's Spearow certainly had._

_Gozaburo had sworn that the bird would be what finally crushed Seto's consistent disobedience and stubbornness. Instead, he was just as ornery as ever, the Spearow seeming to have chosen to take its revenge out upon Gozaburo by ruining the old man's plans for his son. _

_Seto hadn't followed any of the instructions that Gozaburo and his Blasters had given him in the training of his Spearow, it seemed. He didn't use the cage Gozaburo had given him, he didn't use the modified shock collar, the combo leash and choke-chain, or the muzzle, and he didn't use the techniques that his father had armed him with to cause the Spearow to bow to his authority. The only thing he even seemed to have touched was the falconer's glove. _

_Two weeks after Seto had received the Spearow as his starter, the boy hadn't been making any progress at all when Gozaburo had been called away with all but a few of his Blasters. A post that gave out starter Pokémon that Gozaburo had done "business" with had apparently been on the verge of squealing to the BPA and needed to be "dealt" with._

_Bandit Keith had been left alone with Seto and Mokuba, but when Gozaburo had gotten back with the others, the brothers and the bird had locked themselves in Seto's room, and Keith had been locked in a broom closet in the gym. Keith was supposed to have continued Seto's training, but somehow the bastard had figured out that it had been Keith who'd tormented Spearow while it was in the Blasters' care. When Keith had arrived at the outbuilding that the Blasters used as a practice gym, he'd suddenly been viciously set upon by a Spearow that should have been bound in some way or at least have had its beak prevented from opening. _

_The bird had forced the Blaster backwards into the closet where Seto, after grabbing the pokéballs from his belt, had slammed the door on Keith and shut him in there with several bottles of water and a few boxes of crackers. He'd stayed there all week and was only rescued when Gozaburo forced the answer out of Seto as to where he was._

_On the opposite side of the property, Seto had been training his Spearow on his own during that time with Mokuba watching him all the while. Gozaburo didn't know how he'd done it, but when Seto had come out of his room, his little brother cowering behind him, the Spearow had been contently sitting on the boy's gloved arm, calmly staring at the new arrivals who it had hated just a few days before. _

_Gozaburo had of course punished Seto horribly for what he'd done to Keith (and he'd punished Keith as well for being so easily duped). But, the boy had refused to tell Gozaburo exactly what he'd done to make his Pokémon become so devoted to him without using any of the methods Gozaburo had attempted to show him._

"_Seto seems to have his own way of doing things," Gozaburo muttered into his moustache as another Ghost Pokémon, a Duskull, hurtled by him being chased by a Pinsir that took snaps at it periodically during the pursuit. "He'd just better make his way our way, or else we're going to have some __**issues**__ in the future."_

_The old man didn't know how right he was. _

**Thanks for reading! I think I just had a flashback within a flashback. **

**While it was interesting writing from the POV of the villains, I don't think I'll be doing that again in this story, not to say that Seto and Mokuba are going to be the only people from here on out who get to share their views and insights.**


	6. Deep Pink Trouble

**I'm glad I was able to get this fic out today (even though I had wanted it out yesterday). Two days ago, the internet was down here, and I didn't know if someone would be in to take care of the problem since it was a holiday weekend. Luckily, it did, so here's the next chapter of ****Protect the Pokémon!**** And, hey, there are no animal abuse warnings for this chapter! Yay!**

**(I would strongly suggest going to my blog and looking at the post titled ""Protect the Pokémon!" Chapter Four" to view a map of the Kaiba estate as you read through this particular chapter. It is an older post, so it would be best to just go straight to the June posts, though feel free to browse, of course.)**

The Kaiba Corporation building had an underground garage with several levels. One of those levels was filled with cars that Seto himself owned. A few of them were _really_ nice: a Ferrari here, a Porsche there, and a limousine against the wall for showy events. But, mostly they were nondescript, black Town Cars for when Seto didn't want himself or someone doing business for him to be noticed. It was one of these later cars that Seto chose to drive back home in since he'd already sent Prof. Oak packing in the car that had brought them here several hours ago.

_Gods damn Professor Oak_, Seto thought to himself, his face twisting as he pulled into traffic. _Gods damn the whole BPA!_

He had done that wretched bureau so many favors, and all he got in return were increased trade restrictions, a nearly useless Kabuto, and a lack of information in regards to the one thing he'd expected to get a free pass on: his father.

The car swerved slightly as Seto grip became so tight that he jerked the wheel with every minor twitch of his arms.

He'd moved from the city and there was little danger of hitting another care this far into the country outside of Domino, but Seto would still rather not rampage into the ditch, so he lightened his hold, just a bit. It turned out to be a good thing when a string of Hoppips blew across the road about a mile later, right in front of the car. Seto ended up having to stop the car completely as the tumbleweed impersonators giddily bobbed along in the slight, slow-paced breeze. The high beams of the car illuminated their smiling faces in the night, and even through the closed windows Seto could hear them all gleefully giggling their name over and over again. He doubted they'd be doing so had he blindly turned one into a hood ornament in his frustration with the BPA.

If Seto had been at all interested in catching one of the adorable pink plushy-like creatures, it would have been so easy to just step out of the car, choose his Gengar, or even his ridiculous little Eevee, and simply collect them one by one as they floated by.

Had Gozaburo been in Seto's place at this moment, Seto doubted he would have slowed the car down, instead scattering and immobilizing the Hoppips before coming back to gather up the survivors. Gozaburo's theory when it had come to trapping Pokémon was, if he ruined a few in the pursuit of the many, then it was no great loss to him. Those had been his exact words just a few days before Seto had confronted him as the BPA had swarmed the Kaiba mansion and Gozaburo had escaped through the tunnel system in the front of the house that Seto had not yet known about and into the forest.

Seto once again had to loosen his hands on the steering wheel. The last, leisurely Hoppip was bobbing out of the path of the car and Seto began accelerating slowly, carefully watching that the wind wasn't about to change and cause the pink Pokémon to float back in front of his vehicle. Watching in the rearview mirror, Seto saw in the moonlight the herd of Hoppips get caught up in a whirlwind caused by his passing them by.

If the plan Prof. Oak and the BPA had hatched didn't work and Gozaburo really was the one behind the new "Team Rocket," then wild Pokémon would be a thing of the past. They would all be captured, caged, and put under the control of trainers who didn't give a damn for their wellbeing. It would be an ugly world, for the Pokémon that survived that is. Creatures, like those happy Hoppips earlier, Mokuba's un-evolved Venonat, Seto's Meowth, would be perceived as useless and be exterminated or used as "practice" for the Pokémon deemed to be of worth.

Seto would never take in a Clefairy or Togepi for himself, to be sure (even a male Nidoran had been pushing it), but that didn't mean that he wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth. The extinction of anything for any reason was horrible, but adding Gozaburo into the mix would make it so much worse; an apocalypse for everyone, not just the species being eradicated.

Seto almost cracked the button to open the front gates of the estate installed in each of his cars when he smashed his tightened fist into it.

As he made the drive up to the mansion, Seto couldn't stop the questions that went streaming through his mind, making him rethink sending Professor Oak away so quickly. _How long had the mission been in place? Had they made any progress at all? What was there time-table; when would Gozaburo be apprehended? Were they seriously only using one agent at this stage? When would _Seto_ be given the information he was now desperate for? Why tell him at all if he wasn't allowed to do anything to help?_

Seto reached the house and shut down the Town Car. Leaving the keys in the ignition, Seto got out of the car, knowing that one of his security personnel would be along once Seto had cleared the door and would drive it to the garage Seto had off the main property.

Striding up the front steps brought Seto to the glass and oak doors of the mansion's front entryway. A fifth of the estate's security cameras, not including those specific to the breeding grounds, were focused on this point and cavernous foyer within, some pointing directly up at the giant skylight Gozaburo had had installed years ago, the project being completed just as Seto and Mokuba had arrived. Seto had no clue as to why Gozaburo had wanted such a thing; it was a huge security risk, but Mokuba liked it for the light it let into what would most certainly be a dim, gloomy hall, no matter how many artificial lights were put in, should the skylight be taken out. So, they'd kept it. But, Seto had sworn that if Mokuba ever moved out, the skylight would be gone.

Pausing in the moonlit grand foyer (directly under the skylight, ironically), Seto brought both hands up to rub over his eyes and forehead briskly.

Just the thought that Gozaburo might be on the move again, without any true confirmation other than the connections one could make between the name of the Blasters and the name of the newly emerged Team Rocket, had Seto stressed to a level that he hadn't felt since the last time the old man had been in his life.

He needed to calm down. The BPA may not need him now (or, at least, they didn't _think_ they needed him now), but they would later, of that Seto was sure. But, he needed to be ready when that time came, whether it was tomorrow or in two weeks. He couldn't lose it in a crisis, because he was most certain that it would be into some sort of catastrophe that he was pulled.

…Seto knew of one way to get some peace. It was not a long-lasting effect, but it would keep the edge off for a few days, and Seto hadn't been there in a long time.

Bringing his arms down, Seto brushed his hands over his jacket. Reaching inside, Seto brought out six pokéballs, three in each hand. Two he tucked into the breast pocket of the jacket. The other four he opened and released one at a time.

The first out was Gengar. Seto waved it off when it wistfully started to make for Seto's shadow, and he waited until the Gengar sullenly floated away down a hall before letting loose the next.

Seto's Nidorino now tumbled from its pokeball. Imagining that Kaiba would ever have a pink Pokémon was something that the majority of the public would never even dream of, but there it was, dazedly blinking as it looked 'round the vestibule. Just like with Eevee, Seto had wanted a male Nidoran for its potential (and Nidokings weren't pink, either), but this particular Nidorino wasn't living up to Seto's expectations. It had evolved while Seto was capturing Eevee, and it still lost that battle... against _Eevee._ Seto had had to use his Fearow to finish up his battle with her, but, even though Seto had won in the end, the Nidorino's standing was forever forestalled from rising in Kaiba's esteem, even were it to someday become the Nidoking Seto had wanted.

Third out was Eevee. She was momentarily distracted by the Nidoran bumbling down the same hall the Gengar had gone down (Seto bet the poison-type was about to get its spines scared off in just a few more minutes), and Seto could see just a hint of smugness in the tilt of her ears. But, her attention quickly shifted, and Seto got to watch her prance around at his feet, happy to have his attention all to herself for once.

"Hn. That's nice Eevee," he commented offhandedly, nudging her out of his way with the tip of his boot. She followed him doggedly, not seeming to get the snubbing dismissal, as Seto walked up the giant staircase to the second floor landing, heading for his office near the southwest corner.

"Go away, Eevee," he distantly commanded. She continued to bound along after his heels, seeming to ignore Seto's order completely except for the tiptop of her tail drooping, making it into a question mark.

Reaching the door to his office, Seto finally turned to look down at her, right into her bright, hopeful brown eyes that were begging him to let her stay by her master.

"Eevee, I mean it," he said, his voice hard and his eyes narrowed.

Her tail lowered even further until it was limply lying on the carpeted floor, and her usually erect ears were beginning to fall as well. But, she didn't turn away, instead inching forward until she was able to rub her head against his shin, eager to engender some affection from Kaiba.

Seto took a step back. "No, Eevee. Go away."

He quickly opened the door and closed it behind him, making sure to not give her any chance to sneak in after him.

His Meowth had been sleeping in the middle of his desk and now raised its head, letting out a questioning, "_Eeeowth?_" as it yawned.

"Go back to sleep." One pokéball had been left in Seto's hand, and he now let the Kabuto in it out to join Meowth on the desk. Most of his Pokémon were as independent as he was, the Eevee sitting outside his door was one obvious exception, and the two before him were another, having come to enjoy each others' company after spending so many hours together waiting for Seto to return to this room to work.

Seto probably spent most of his time with these two for that same reason. They were always here as he worked, having claimed the spot as jointly being theirs when they realized how much time Seto spent here, doing their best to bar all the other Pokémon, jealous of the standing it afforded them.

Giving the two conspirators a suspicious look, catching them fixedly watching him in turn, Kabuto's eyes glowing red and Meowth's reflecting back the little light there was in the room, Seto told them, "Leave Eevee alone for a while. She doesn't need to deal with having you two on her case at the moment."

Kabuto's eyes seemed to bob, indicating a nod of acknowledgement, and Meowth gave a very vocal yowl of acquiescence. There had been rumors circulating a while back that a Meowth had actually learned to speak English, but Seto had never tried to make his do the same; it was quite able in regards to making what it wanted known already. (And, there might be something to Mokuba's theory that Seto would not like having a Pokémon capable of talking back to him, but that was beside the point.)

Moving along with things, Seto's office was not his ultimate destination, just a stop along the way.

Walking to the windows, Seto opened one and gave a brisk, piercing whistle. Even though their bedrooms were on the other side of the house, this whistle was occasionally known to reach so far and awaken Mokuba after he'd gone to bed, too tired to wait up for his brother. Hopefully, Mokuba was spending tonight down in the Playroom, getting his new Venonat used to his other Pokémon and vice versa. That was assuming he was asleep, which he'd better be considering how late it was.

The whistle caused the large, darkened figure of Seto's Fearow to raise its head from where it rested in the tree Seto had left it in. When he was confident the bird was looking straight at him, Seto jerked his head behind him, slightly off to the right. He thought he saw the giant Pokémon's head nod in understanding, and then saw its vast wings spreading. Seto watched, transfixed, hanging partially out of his window, as the Fearow took flight and soared over the house, heading to the back of the property. Pulling himself back in, he latched the window closed and headed for his desk. As he leaned down to grab a bundle from the bottom drawer, both of the Pokémon on top came over to inspect what he was up to, not that they hadn't seen it a million times before. Meowth even cuddled his face into Seto's hair, purring as he did so. Seto promptly straightened and smoothed his hair back into place coolly.

As he was about to turn away, Seto noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Reaching forward, Seto carefully straightened one of his Meowth's hind legs as it sat obligingly on the desktop. Examining it thoroughly, Seto saw that the tan markings, on both legs and at the end of its tail, had receded lower than it had been when he'd first captured the Pokémon. It was near completely confined to the paws at this point on the legs and just the nib of its tail, an indication in the species that they were close to evolving. Seto couldn't help himself from grinning triumphantly, just a bit, that he'd been able to take the pathetic, messed-up wretch that the Meowth had been when Seto had first found it in the fox trap to the point that it was both physically and mentally able to take on and conquer the stress of evolving into a skilled Persian.

"Very good, Meowth," Seto praised, not quite warmly. His Meowth seemed to glow at the half-hearted attempt at congratulation, and its purring grew quite loud. "Still, remember what I said about Eevee," Seto reminded again, encompassing Kabuto as well. Once more, he received a nod and a burred yowl.

Seto turned to the wall that held the secret access to the underground tunnels and triggered its opening mechanism. His Meowth had begun rubbing his drooling cheeks over Kabuto's shell in joy as the door closed behind Seto, locking him for the moment in the concrete warrens burrowed into the grounds of the estate.

He headed north for now, but eventually met up with the system that lead to the lake's periphery, the same one he'd taken when he'd found his poor Meowth. For a moment, he had to wonder if the scars that rimmed its left foreleg under the fur would remain when the cat leveled up.

At the final turn that would lead him to the tunnel's exit, Seto stopped and began stripping out of his business attire. The bundle that he'd brought with him consisted of a few things: a towel and a wetsuit, as well as a pair of mostly mesh shoes that had soles that just barely protected Seto's feet from the sharp rocks and that could show up on the lakebed and also gave him a litte traction on the smoother rocks that were coated with slippery algae. Leaving his dress suit and the cell phone inside it in the underground passage, Seto grabbed his last two filled pokéballs and headed for the ladder out of there.

The first thing Seto saw upon peeling back the covering to the tunnel was his Fearow circling above his exact location, blocking out the moon and dozens of stars depending on what part of the arc he was in at a given moment.

Seto hoisted himself up from the man-made pit and sat on the edge, leaving his legs dangling. Looking up again, he waved his arm and waited for his Fearow to add in an extra flap to signify that they were the only ones out here who were supposed to be. Fearow gave it, and Seto unleashed one of the Pokémon in the pokéballs left. A particularly large Cloyster erupted and set off without needing directions from its trainer; they had been through this routine so many times that it wasn't necessary. The Cloyster would make its way over the water to the forest, and from there it would patrol the perimeter of the property bordered by the trees, watching for intruders.

Fearow would continue to fly above the main lake, and the final Pokémon Seto had up his sleeve would remain _in_ the lake. Seto tossed the final pokéball as close to the lake's edge and as far from himself as possible. It was smartest to keep away from this particular Pokémon when it first "woke up" or whatever it was that Pokémon did when they were let out of there tiny containers.

Seto's Gyarados could be particularly nasty when it woke up, but it was one of the most loyal as well. Stretching as it became used to the outside world again, the blue brute gave a low, shuddering growl that created ripples in the water by itself and put a huge amount of pressure on Seto's eardrums.

Sometimes Seto felt something akin to guilt for bringing such an abrasively violent and inherently angry monster to a place where he came to find some sort tranquility, but how could he feel any sort of calm if he wasn't certain that he'd be safe?

Certain that his Gyarados wouldn't spontaneously decide to take a swipe at him, Seto closed the entrance to the underground system and, still giving the Pokémon a fairly wide berth, began to wade into the water. He knew the journey by heart now: First, he would swim from the blunt point of the stubby peninsula that the tunnel's opening was located on to the shore due east. Then, he'd walk alongside the lake until he reached the stream that flowed out of the lake and fed the moat around the breeding grounds. On the other side of the stream was the forest, purposely kept overrun with undergrowth to keep unwelcome visitors _out_.

This was where Seto reentered the water of the main lake, swam up along the forest's boundary, and through a hidden inlet that led to what Seto called the lake minor. The inlet and lake minor were too deep for Seto to touch the bottom, and, with the forest encroaching on either side, it was impossible to get to land. There was, however, a small outcropping of rocks that sprang up out of the water in the very center of the lake minor, giving Seto something to rest on as he waited.

Seto made the entire swim and trek in about twenty minutes and settled himself on what he'd come to think of as his rock. Rather than being on the top of the rock pile, it was one near the bottom, closer to the water for easy access.

Seto had been sitting there for over ten minutes when the ripples came. It wasn't his Gyarados, which was forbidden from entering the inlet, but the Pokémon that had fascinated Seto since the moment he had seen its blue scales in the waves five years ago.

Seto felt himself relaxing slowly, the aura brought by this Pokémon being the most serene of any that Seto had ever met. The ripples got closer and closer until Seto was able to reach out and touch it through them. He ran his hand along the side of the great Pokémon as it slipped through the water just beneath the surface.

_It's going to be shedding its skin soon_, he noted as he saw the dark blue flakes that had crackled off and stuck to his hand when he brought it up, remembering a passage from a book in the mansion's library he'd read while researching what possible beast could be living in the lake when he'd first seen indications of its presence. After catching sight of it a few more times and finding several more books on the subject of water-dwelling Pokémon, Seto had finally come to the conclusion that the serpentine creature _must_ be a Dragonair, or a very large Dratini. He'd severely doubted the latter, and had been right to do so, though, even after so long of being in contact with the Pokémon, Seto had never seen the _entire_ dragon-type, most of it always being hidden underwater.

It hadn't been until a year after Seto had driven Gozaburo from the estate that the Dragonair had shown even a bit of itself to him. During that time, Seto had become well-acquainted with almost all the other Pokémon in the lake, including a particularly brave (or foolish) Magikarp that had swam right up to the shore whenever Seto came by. Seto had begun nurturing and subtly training the fish, giving it months' worth of attention, and ended up not officially catching it with his then-still Spearow until just before it was ready to evolve into the wildly cultivated Gyarados that Seto now had in his possession.

The Cloyster hadn't been caught until later. It had been a Shellder then, caught by Seto's Gengar when it was still just a Haunter, and had become a brief experiment that Seto admitted (to himself alone) was a slight bit Gozaburo-like in nature. Seto had rather simply exposed the Shellder to a Water Stone immediately upon defeating it, unsure if the Pokémon could take the sudden stress of becoming a Cloyster. It had, amazingly enough, and turned into an exceptional example of the species in just a few months. But, Seto hadn't seen the Dragonair for twice that length of time after that, almost coming to the conclusion that it had left the area to go who knows where, but eventually coming upon it in one last, almost desperate visit to try to find a sign of the Pokémon. Now, Seto realized that he'd been "punished" or possibly "reprimanded" by the creature for what he'd done to teh defenseless Shellder.

By that time, Seto had already become dependent upon the soothing atmosphere the Dragonair was able to cultivate within him on occasion. He had gotten to a point a few years ago where he would be at the lake every night, praying for what had become a fix for him. It ended up being the drug itself that cut Seto off then by simply refusing to show. So, Seto had had to learn to temper and control himself (which he'd already thought he'd known how to do), and had been able to cut back to only seeing the Dragonair when it seemed necessary, or when he didn't need it at all. It was a almost a paradox that he would be allowed to see it when he was feeling fine, but Seto did not pretend to know how to predict how this particular Pokémon worked; it was shrouded in the watery mystery of the lake minor, which Seto had deduced to be its home.

But, at this particular moment, Seto needed what the Dragonair could offer him, or else he knew he would be of absolutely no use to anyone, just like he'd been the last time he'd attempted to bring Gozaburo down.

* * *

_Five Years Ago__:_

_Seto had been working with the BPA for several months and was more than ready for it to be over with._

_He'd lost count of how many times he'd worn a wire in the midst of his father and the Blasters, and every single camera that Seto could find, some that he hadn't even known existed (like those in his and Mokuba's bedrooms and bathrooms), had feeds that allowed the BPA to watch everything that took place in the house and in the gym._

_As Seto had been doing his little acts of legal espionage, he'd been unable to tell if the pounding of his heart was due to excitement or fear. He'd ended up __**telling**__ himself that it was excitement, because, otherwise, he didn't think he'd have been able to go through with everything he'd been assigned to do in order to bring down Gozaburo._

_Against orders, he'd ended up telling his little brother why he'd been acting so oddly and secretive for what, in Mokuba's young mind, seemed the longest of times. Seto had broken the news while Mokuba rolled quarters and dimes for the Meowth Seto had rescued to limp after and bat around, their burnished surfaces fascinating the cat that Seto had kept hidden in his room, refusing to let this Pokémon go through the same treatment his Spearow had been subjected to. Hiding the scratches and bite marks the Meowth had left on his skin had been a bit more difficult to take care of, as had explaining to Gozaburo why he had such a sudden longing to get a tetanus shot._

_Mokuba hadn't responded warmly to what Seto had planned, not even taking his eyes up from the coins he was tossing to the wobbly gaited Meowth. "What if you're found out?" the kid had finally asked._

"_Well," Seto had begun, coming to crouch down beside his brother, "either the BPA has enough time to pull the both of us out, or I'm punished."_

"_What kind of punishment?" Mokuba had wanted to know, his eyes still not looking up at Seto, his hands stopping the coin tossing. _

_The Meowth had come over to investigate why its flow of entertainment had stopped and Seto pat it on its head as it came near, using the moment to find an adequate answer. Mokuba tried to do the same, but the Pokémon hissed and backed away from the smaller boy; it didn't trust anyone other than Seto touch it at this point in its rehabilitation. _

"_The kind that I wouldn't be getting over quickly," Seto had answered truthfully enough, leaving out the 'or at all' so as not to scare Mokuba any more than he had to._

"_Oh," Mokuba had replied so quietly that Seto had barely heard it. "Why… then why are you taking the risk?"_

_Seto had merely extended a hand towards the Meowth that had begun grooming its wounded leg and chewing at the bandages when they got in its way._

_Mokuba's room had been the first place that Seto had brought the Meowth, so the little brother had known the sort of bad shape it had been in before Seto had gotten around to treating it, and, while the wound was healing up, the limp was slow to go away and would take years to disappear completely. Mokuba had also seen Seto's Spearow before and during the training that Seto had put it through to make it anywhere close to being even slightly wholesome. _

_Seto had been counting on Mokuba not wanting to see another of Seto's Pokémon be presented in such a gruesome fashion as the others, or to have his own starter Pokémon be so covered in blood when it was presented to him that he may not even realize what species it was the first time he saw it._

_It had taken a while, but Mokuba had finally come around to the idea of turning their adoptive father in, and he had even offered to do whatever he could to help. Seto had asked him to do nothing other than act normally and know that in just a short time they'd be serving to make the world safer for Pokémon of all types. _

_Now was finally the time. Going by the wristwatch that was currently hidden beneath Seto's unoccupied falconer's glove, in a few minutes the BPA would swarm the estate from two points: the main gate to the west, and the less-active gate in the east that opened to the practice gym. Thanks to Seto, they had all the evidence they needed to bring in not only Gozaburo, but also all the Blasters, and, cleverly, Seto thought, the BPA had waited until they'd gathered enough information for __**life **__sentences for them all, not paltry two- or three-year slaps on the wrist._

_But, even the life sentence for his father wasn't quite enough for Seto to be content with. He needed to gloat; he needed his monologue-moment. And, even then, unless Seto got the chance to punch Gozaburo in the face several consecutive times, he would still feel as if he'd let the man off easy._

_Seto whistled lowly and heard an answering chirp just down the hall from where he stood in front of his father's home office. His Spearow silently glided over to land on Seto's outstretched, glove-clad arm. He'd been scouting to make sure that no one else would disturb Seto's and Gozaburo's father-and-son time. _

_The Spearow nodded at him, and Seto nodded back before reaching out a hand and slamming the office door wide open._

_Gozaburo didn't even seem startled when he'd looked up from the papers piled on his desk. The man's vicious, fanged Ivysaur was sitting possessively in front of the desk, the bloom on its back swelling and giving off a cloyingly sweet scent, indicating how close the wee beasty was to evolving. Because, a rampaging Venusaur was exactingly what a sadistic bastard needed in his scheme for world domination._

_The Ivysaur snarled, slightly frothing at the mouth, its crazed, bloodshot purplish-pink eyes widening in rage at Seto's insolence. _

"_If I were you, Seto," Gozaburo simply stated, "I'd apologize to the plant before it slashes your skin to ribbons."_

"_I'm sorry… that it will never get a chance to," Seto spat. On his arm, his Spearow began shifting and tightening his talons in impatient preparation. It was leaning so far forward in anticipation that Seto thought it might tumble off its perch and onto the floor, becoming an easy target for the enraged, rabid Ivysaur. Seto certainly hoped that his Pokémon was too smart to allow such a thing to happen to him._

_His son had Gozaburo's attention; he even put the pen he'd been using to write his John Hancock down. "Do tell, boy."_

"_Your… "business" of turning Pokémon into __**that—**__"Seto struck out his free hand in the direction of the growling, twitching Ivysaur "—is over, you vile psychopath."_

_Gozaburo blinked his mustard yellow eyes slowly, using the pause to take in what Seto had declared so vociferously. A small crack of a smile appeared on his lined face, seeming to split his moustache in two._

"_You've been inhaling too many fumes let out by that Gastly of yours, haven't you, lad? I think it's messed with your head a bit, eh?"_

"_No, I don't think so," Seto replied coldly._

_Gozaburo's smile dropped faster than a bowling ball rolled off the Empire State Building. _

"_Then, you're just naturally out of your mind," Gozaburo hissed, rising slightly from this desk. "You're going through that white-hat fascination that children eventually grow out of, and that you __**should**__ have grown out of by now. So, why don't you do me a favor for once, and grow up. Realize that you can't best me, Seto, or you'll have hell to pay. Got it?"_

"_No." Seto took a bold step forward. "Now, it's your chance to __**get it**__. The BPA will be arriving any second. I've given them all the proof they need to throw you in a dark cell, cut off from the rest of the world for the rest of your life, and I've given them the pass codes to the gates. Their agents are going to be swarming the property, and you and your revolting buddies in brutality are going to be out of my life and away from any Pokémon you might have ever gotten it into your head to warp, got it?" Seto was yelling by the end of his speech._

_Gozaburo looked completely dumbfounded for several moments and his slavering Ivysaur also became quiet for a just a moment. _

_Gozaburo took in a deep breath just as Seto saw the first van of BPA personnel beginning speeding up the drive from the gate, spewing out a cloud of dust behind it. "You've certainly turned out to be an interesting sort of person, Seto. Traitorous, but interesting." Seeming to snap back to himself, Gozaburo started edging around the desk and toward the north wall with its single lighter, wooden panel. "Unfortunately, it seems that I'm going to be unable to stick around and see how you turn out. But, you can trust that we will be seeing each other again, boy. Ivysaur, now!"_

"_Spearow!" Seto shouted as the plant Pokémon made a charging leap towards them. Letting out a resounding war cry that could be heard all throughout the mansion as well as all the way to the van outside, the Spearow launched itself at the Ivysaur, but it was too late._

_The flower on the Ivysaur's back erupted, releasing a dense cloud of glittering, clinging, sickly lavender gas that shot right up both Spearow's and Seto's nostrils._

_Seto heard the sound of something sliding open and had the time to think of how prepared Gozaburo was for Seto to turn on him, always having his Ivysaur out and with him when Seto visited him in his office, before he fell to the floor and blacked out._

_When Seto came to, two BPA field agents had been leaning over him and a third was holding back a frantic Mokuba with Seto's dazed and drooping Spearow in his little arms. The agents had checked him over time and time again and had tried to sugarcoat it when Seto asked what had happened to Gozaburo and the Blasters. Eventually, they'd spilled: nearly a third of the Blasters had gotten away, and Gozaburo Kaiba had vanished without a trace through a tunnel system that Seto, and therefore the BPA, had had no idea existed._

_If Seto had just waited for the BPA to nab Gozaburo, if he hadn't given in to his need to have the last word in his and his father's soon to be terminated relationship, Gozaburo would have been securely in custody._

_It was Seto's fault that Gozaburo had gotten away._

* * *

After visiting the Dragonair was the best time to think over things that would otherwise prove too tension and trauma-filled, Seto had found. As Seto pulled himself up onto the shore of the main lake by the stream, he let his mind wander back to the day the Gozaburo had gotten away.

They'd eventually been able to track the tunnel system to its three exits, two on the inside and outside of the western fence and one on the edge of the forest, and had determined it was the forest one that Gozaburo and the Blasters stationed at the gate that had gotten away through the use of the forest outlet. No agents had been stationed at the forest because Seto had repeatedly reassured them that there was no way that the vegetation would allow any sort of passage off of or on to the grounds, again making it Seto's fault that the old man had escaped.

His theorizing had been sound. He just hadn't considered how the fugitives would have used their Pokémon to forge a path through the woods; an oversight that had ended up costing them dearly. For a long time, the footprints of the Blasters and the BPA agents following Gozaburo had been quite easy to pick out amidst the ashes of ruined flora. It was only recently that the trail Gozaburo had had burned through the trees had grown over enough to be indistinguishable from its surroundings.

Seto hadn't even been aware of Gozaburo owning a fire-type Pokémon that could do such damage. He'd only known of the Ivysaur, an Aerodactyl that he wasn't supposed to have seen in the first place, and a fully evolved Gengar that Gozaburo had been using to teach Seto how to raise his Gastly. The BPA had admitted to giving Gozaburo an Omastar many years ago in recognition of services that the Kaiba had provided (by 'services,' Seto had surmised 'cash'), and that had tainted Seto's own acceptance of his Kabuto. But, other than those four, the only people who they knew would know what other Pokémon Gozaburo held in his possession were the incarcerated Blasters, and they, understandably, weren't talking.

Seto sighed as he walked across the bank between the stream and the next segment of lake he would be swimming. Breathing in through his nose, Seto caught a whiff of something foul, almost causing him to gag. He knew that smell.

A Muk or a Grimer was nearby. The Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds employed several such Pokémon, actually, so it was not entirely out of place. They were stationed around the moat and posed as regular mud, lying in wait for anyone who _somehow_ made it past the Dugtrios, the friendly, ready-to-sound-the-alarm wild bird and other type Pokémon in the trees, and just generally past the gates, and then would try to cross the moat on foot. So far, there had never been such a case in the history of KEBG, but one could not be too careful, especially not when such grounds were on the same site as Gozaburo's previous, personal gym.

What was odd was that the Muks and Grimers were specifically ordered to confine themselves to the moat area for several reasons. One, so that their toxins would contaminate only the moat, not the stream flowing into it, and certainly not the lake with its high concentration of clean water-dependent Pokémon, and, two, so that no spy could differentiate them from the rest of the ground on the property and prepare accordingly for an on-foot invasion of the breeding grounds. To smell one of the mud puddle-like creatures this far out, even if there had been a strong south-easterly wind, was not acceptable. Seto would have to have a talk with the breeding grounds manager to rectify the issue, and _soon_.

Seto carefully inspected the shoreline before he reentered the water and swam across to the stumpy peninsula.

As Seto had swum out of the inlet, he'd seen the white triangular fins of his Gyarados disappearing beneath the surface of the water several yards ahead of him. Now, as he walked up onto dry ground, he heard the water parting as something large broke the surface, and, looking over his shoulder, Seto saw the gaping maw of the Gyarados looming what most people would deem to be uncomfortably near. Seto reached out and patted the dragon on the blue crest on its forehead. "Stay out here tonight."

The Gyarados rumbled as it slowly nodded its head, its ferocious expression not changing in the least as it blew its hot, burnt-wood smelling breath.

Seto grunted. The Cloyster was too far away to contact, but Seto wanted it out keeping watch tonight anyway, just like the Gyarados, and Seto's Fearow was free to do as it liked. More likely than not, Seto would find it in the tree visible from his office's window the next morning in any case.

The Gyarados turned and flipped its tail as a way of saying goodbye. Seto watched as it departed for a moment, until it completely submerged itself, becoming yet another trap that could be sprung on the Kaiba estate.

* * *

Seto changed back into his clothes in the tunnel after getting out of the wetsuit and rubbing himself dry with the towel, which also succeeded in warming him up after his sojourn into the cold water.

When he reached his office, he woke his Meowth once more, who murmured his greeting, blinking contentedly at Seto. Kabuto was nowhere in sight, but Seto's Nidorino had set up shop in the middle of the room, exactly where, five years ago, Gozaburo's Ivysaur had sat, waiting for Gozaburo's order to release its poisonous spores.

Upon seeing him, the Nidorino stood and trotted over to welcome Seto back as the trainer/CEO kicked the secret door shut behind him. Outside the office door, Seto noticed finally, Eevee was yipping up a storm.

Seto's eyes darted from the door to the pink Pokémon still making its way jauntily over to him.

Somehow, his Nidorino had gotten into the room when the door had been closed, though admittedly not locked, and that door was still closed. And, Seto's Nidorino was not the sort who "trotted," being more likely to slouch or slump somewhere until provoked into grudging movement of the slow, tiresome kind. Combining those two details and Eevee's disquieting squeals with Meowth's sudden, focused stare now directed at the Nidorino led Seto to only one conclusion: this was _not_ his Nidorino.

"Meowth, detain it," Seto quietly ordered, having frozen as the realization dawned on him.

With a snarl, the Meowth leapt from the desk and tackled the strange Pokémon, intercepting it before it reached Seto. Racing to his desk, Seto reached under the desk and slapped the red panic button concealed there. Sirens began blaring just as Seto heard his Meowth give a strangled attempt at a meow.

Out of the corner of his eye, Seto saw a flash of pink making for the windows. But, the pink being was no longer in the shape of a Nidorino, instead, it had morphed into its true form. Seto felt his eyes widen in outraged horror. A Ditto! Someone had sent a Ditto to mimic one of his Pokémon and to spy on him! It was assuredly a stupid Ditto, but damn it!

Realizing what it was about to do, Seto leaped for the Pokémon himself, attempting to pry it away from the window frame. Unfortunately, the Ditto's viscous form allowed it to slip through his fingers, literally, from whence it proceeded to seep through the almost infinitesimal gap under the window.

Mokuba, having run from his bedroom upon hearing the alarms sounding, knowing that the only places that had panic buttons were their bedrooms and the office, burst into the office, his Treecko and Seto's Eevee hustling in after him to find Meowth coughing up pink bits of Ditto and Seto striking the windows with the flat of his hand and cursing a blue streak from here all the way to the secret breeding grounds in the back. Mokuba hoped that someone thought to cover the baby Pokémon's ears.

**Thanks for reading! I decided it was time for a ****Protect the Pokémon!**** update, and it ended up being one of the longest chapters yet. A good trade-off for having to wait a little longer, ne? **

**In regards to the details that led Seto to believe that his Meowth was due to evolve soon, I realize that they don't, but call it my making use of my artistic license. Ivysaurs, however, **_**do**_** indicate that they're about to evolve through scent and their flower bulging, or at least they do according to Bulbapedia.**


	7. Ditto Did Indeed

**I don't have much to say at the moment. I've been repeating that a lot recently (see my blog to get the joke).**

"Duke. Where are you going?"

Duke jumped as Bandit Keith stepped into his path out of nowhere.

Gathering his composure, Duke responded, "Can't a guy get a day off?"

Bandit Keith narrowed his exposed blue eyes. "Not in Team Rocket, no."

"You look pretty relaxed for someone who never gets a day off," Duke retorted, citing Bandit Keith's lack of trademark bandana, sunglasses, and studded jacket. But, despite that and what Duke had said, Keith didn't look relaxed in the least. If anything, he looked even more aggressive and less impeded by all the manly glitz.

As Bandit Keith took a step forward, Duke felt more intimidated than he had since the last time the director of the BPA had chewed him out for playing by his own rules, and that hardly came close.

"I'm not going out," Keith growled, baring his teeth, "now am I?" Another step forward.

"Keith."

Duke whirled around at the new voice booming behind him.

Gozaburo was standing in the open doorway to his office. It had been closed and he'd been shut inside just moments before, so Duke figured the minor commotion must have drawn him out. Either that or this was a calculated ambush.

"Sir," Duke greeted, feeling increasingly on edge the longer he held Gozaburo's tiny mustard eyes. Bandit Keith let out a grunt behind him. It sounded like he had moved in closer.

"…Get off the newbie's case, Howard," Gozaburo eventually mandated, sounding, for all the world, like a benevolent father-figure. He even added in a fake, stilted grin. "We can give him a few hours to gather himself; no doubt these past months have been stressful on the new batch, eh? And, with the big day being so close at hand, he must be feeling his nerves starting to get shaken up on him."

Another grunt from Keith. He was even closer.

"Thank you, Mr. Kaiba," Duke hurried out, bowing his head slightly in deference.

He carefully turned to leave, having to go slightly out of his way in order to avoid running into Bandit Keith standing right behind him. As he walked away, he felt as if he had a target on his back and was waiting for them to jump him. He let out a breath of relief when he finally turned the corner and was out of their sights.

"Should I follow him?" Keith asked when Duke was far enough away to not overhear them.

"No. Remember what that wretched bird did to you the last time?"

Bandit Keith blinked in vague surprise. "So… He's really going there, then?"

"…I have no doubt."

* * *

"Be nice to Plumpness, Seto!" Mokuba called across the lawn.

Seto rolled his eyes at the cutesy name Mokuba had given his newly evolved Gloom. As he thought it, Mokuba was fondly petting the drooling, stinking blue blob as if it were the most adorable Pokémon he'd ever seen. Seto didn't even want the creature in his house, not with its sticky nectar-dripping mouth and the stench of dead meat billowing from its bloom, designed to attract its prey. But, two months ago when Mokuba's Oddish had evolved into a Gloom, Mokuba had begged that it at least be allowed to continue to reside in the Playroom. Seto had only relented after Mokuba had threatened to order his Gloom to set off its reeking pollen bomb in his office.

As it was, even Mokuba could only stand to be in the Playroom with his Gloom when all the windows were open and he had several fans going to direct to smell outside. He still didn't have a good answer for when Seto asked him what he was going to do when the weather turned cold, which it had been doing at night for the past few days.

"Okay, go get 'em Plumpness!" Mokuba cheered on, letting go of his Pokémon and rubbing a glob of nectar/slobber from his cheek and where it had dribbled onto his neck. His sleeve was going to smell like honey for the rest of the day.

Once more, Seto rolled his eyes, but allowed a smile to tip his mouth. "Nidorino, get a move on."

As the Nidorino trudged out to the battlefield (a large patch of the backyard cleared of Dugtrio for the Kaiba boys to practice training on), Seto watched the Pokémon carefully for telltales signs that it really was _his_ bloody Nidorino.

It had been two months since the infiltration of the unidentified Ditto, and Seto still had difficulty trusting any of his Pokémon for fear that they might not be who he thought they were. For this reason, he'd chosen to keep all his Pokémon in their pokéballs unless they were being used. Now, only Fearow, Nidorino, and Seto's new Persian were out.

Mokuba's Oddish hadn't been the only one to evolve. Another consequence of the Ditto's appearance was Seto stepping up everyone's training. Even Fearow got a second education out of Seto's paranoia. He'd been pushing all the Pokémon, his, Mokuba's, the corporation's, until they were in all in pique condition, causing a rash of evolutions across the board. Any Pokémon even remotely close to leveling up, and some that weren't, were now at the next, and sometimes final, stage of their evolution.

Seto's Persian was at the moment stalking around his legs, watching out for prey, its natural aggression as a Meowth having grown exponentially. It still adored Seto, but Mokuba stayed away from Seto's office almost altogether now, and even Kabuto was in danger of being swiped at. At least Mokuba was capable of pulling at Persian's whiskers when it became too antagonistic; Kabuto, not so much. It was lucky to have a protective shell, but Seto had noticed some scratches appearing on it recently, and he knew who was to blame.

Bad kitty.

"Are you ready, Mokuba?" Seto asked, requiring the confirmation before he began his attack on his brother's Gloom.

"We were born ready, Seto!" Mokuba shouted, absolutely psyched. He and Gloom had been working especially hard, determined to beat Nidorino this time into the ground so that they could move on to some of Seto's stronger Pokémon, like Persian.

Seto smiled slightly, hoping Mokuba realized that he wasn't going to be holding back like he had the times before. Tournament season was coming up, and a pair of brothers by the names of Yugi and Yami Moto. One or the other had beaten him in the past three tournaments, and Seto was _not_ going to be allowing for a fourth. The Moto brothers had never faced Seto Kaiba when he was pissed off and ready to annihilate like he'd been for the past couple of months.

Lucky for Gloom, Seto was stopped from letting some of that hostility work its way out through a pokébattle by the appearance of Prof. Oak and an unknown figure from behind the southeast corner of the mansion.

Mokuba was the first to notice them. "Seto, look. Who's that with Professor Oak?"

After a moment of thought, Seto answered slowly, "I don't know."

* * *

"Duke Devlin. It's… interesting to finally meet you, Seto Kaiba," Duke said as he shook the other's hand.

"Hn," Seto grunted, not trusting the look of punk standing before him.

Prof. Oak cleared his throat nervously, catching everyone's attention. Even Mokuba's Gloom was watching with more than a hint of curiosity.

"Agent Devlin…uh…"

_Agent?_ The through ran through both Seto's and Mokuba's head. Seto's Persian gave a questioning burr as it restlessly shifted its shoulders.

"…he's, uh, he—"

"I'm the agent who's infiltrated Team Rocket and knows the whereabouts of Gozaburo Kaiba," Duke finally spat out for Prof. Oak.

Prof. Oak never saw Kaiba's eyes so wide. As he once again took over, explaining how Duke had only been ingratiated into the then-seemingly diminutive, regular black-market Pokémon-trading organization as a means of getting him away from his ticked-off supervisor (Duke inserted how he and his supervisor had never seen eye-to-eye on certain issues), how that little group had turned out to be something bigger hiding itself in the shadows, and how, as Duke had found himself rising up the ranks of "Team Rocket," he'd finally been able to discover the identity of the leader and his right-hand-man: Gozaburo Kaiba and Keith "Bandit Keith" Howard.

And, now, of especial importance, how Duke Devlin had information that was of extreme significance to Seto Kaiba and the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds.

"Gozaburo is planning a raid on KEBG," Duke surmised.

It took Seto a moment to gather himself; even he was momentarily overloaded by the amount of data he'd just received. "How were you able to discover that? Are you that _integral_ to Team Rocket?"

Something about this screamed of underhanded and shady to him. How long, exactly, had Duke been a member of Team Rocket? Was it long enough that he'd been converted? What exactly did he and his supervisor disagree about?

A smirk jumped to Duke's face. "I have a reliable spy on my side. And, yes, I am pretty close to the heart of it." The smirk remained, bugging the life out of Kaiba. "I've been partnered with Howard for the past several months, and have been included in meetings held between him and Gozaburo for the past couple. But, I got the info by having my _spy_ read some files. They weren't complete, but we were able to recover the date of the raid."

"When?"

"Thursday," Duke answered definitely. "Sometime between ten and midnight."

Seto nodded, but kept his eyes on Agent Devlin.

Once again, Prof. Oak cleared his throat. "The BPA has a battle plan that we _hope_ you will be willing to go along with, Mr. Kaiba."

Seto narrowed his eyes at the professor. "Such as?"

"Well, the BPA's attainment of this information wasn't exactly… condoned by law."

"Meaning what?" Seto asked tensely, knowing where this was going.

Until the raid actually takes place… the BPA can't participate in stopping them or aiding you," Prof. Oak rushed out, ducking his head in preparation for any blowback. "The only defense you can take is that which is provided by fellow civilians."

"Fellow civilians?" Seto repeated.

"Yes." Again, Prof. Oak started talking fast. "We realize that even with your security teams here and at Kaiba Corp. you don't have the manpower, so we have a suggestion of an assembly of trainers lined-up and willing to fight by your side."

"_Who?_"

"…The Moto family and their friends."

They all watched as Seto ran the idea of accepting help from anyone, much less his rivals, run through his head.

This was a desperate situation. Seto had less than a week to prepare for a foray from his reviled adoptive father and a heartless team made up of unknown numbers, he had no chance of support from the BPA until _after_ the attack is initiated, and he had to deal with Yugi, Yami, and Solomon Moto and their _friends_, which no doubt included the incorrigible mutt Wheeler, friendship-spouting Tea Gardner, and spineless Tristan Taylor.

He hated to admit it, but Seto opened his mouth eventually and stated: "I need time to think about this before I agree." He was in a state of shock at the moment.

Prof. Oak nodded, relieved he was even considering the idea. "I understand. Duke, can you return tomorrow or the next day, possibly, so we can finalize the plan?"

The agent shook his head. "I was almost caught leaving," Duke reported. "If I leave again, they'll suspect me."

"They no doubt suspect you now," Mokuba put in. Everyone looked down at him, surprised by his perceptive comment as much as by his actual presence.

"Whatever, kid," Duke dismissed.

Persian let out a nasty snarl, masking Seto's own growl. He'd been pushed too far today.

"Don't speak like that to Kaiba's brother!" Prof. Oak protested. "They're our friends in this."

"Friends?" Duke jeered. "I doubt that."

"You should," Seto confirmed. "We Kaibas are not friends of the BPA, even with Gozaburo gone. We just do what we need to keep Kaiba Corp. afloat."

Prof. Oak gasped. "Don't say things like that in front of us, Kaiba. You could get into some serious, legal trouble."

"He doesn't care," Duke scoffed. "He's a _Kaiba_, and all that screwed up jazz."

"You don't know how much," Seto replied lowly, taking a menacing step forward. Persian moved with him, its tail straight up, eyes wide, and teeth bared.

"Whoa, whoa." Prof. Oak stepped between the two of them. "There's really no need for this."

"I'm sure there _is_," Duke muttered to himself.

"Enough," Prof. Oak muttered back. "Seto is an asset to us. He's not involved with Gozaburo or Team Rocket, so stop treating him like the enemy."

"_I know_ he's not," Duke said, rolling his eyes. Mokuba's Gloom tilted it's head, detecting a note of something he was unfamiliar with in Mokuba's voice.

Duke turned, figuring that they were done here and snagging Prof. Oak's lab coat-covered arm on his way. "I made sure of that on my own."

"What the hell does that mean?" Seto snarled.

Turning back, letting go of Prof. Oak's struggling arm, Duke aloofly answered, "I wanted to make sure that you weren't the type to blab about my being a double agent, so I sent my Ditto to spy on you. He got chased off of your property before he could find out much, but he was able to learn a little about the way you… operated… What's the matter with your Persian?"

Persian had begun giving a coughing, smothered roar, unable to give voice to its full, shocked outrage. None of the people presence had ever having heard such an unusual, menacing sound before.

Mokuba began backing up, dragging his confused Gloom with him, knowing the fireworks were about to start. Because, even though the sounds from Persian were alarming, he'd been looking at Seto's face, and he didn't want himself or his Pokémon to be anywhere near him for the next several minutes, not to mention nea the fallout that would be coming for hours and days to come.

Seto, his voice blank and eyes seething, said, "That was… _your_ Ditto?"

* * *

Professor Oak and Duke, their ears still ringing, were strolling around to the front of the house where their car waited ten minutes later, Seto's Fearow flying above, keeping track of them.

Bringing a hand up, Duke stuck his pinkie in his ear and swirled it about as he asked, "Did you know he was going to blow up like that?"

"…I suppose I should have," Prof. Oak admitted, mentally smacking himself for not realizing that the scalding rebuking they'd received was exactly what they should have expected.

"A bit full of himself, isn't he?" Duke offhandedly remarked.

Prof. Oak paused, and it took Duke several moments to realize that he no longer had a walking companion. "He's not the only one, though, is he?" Prof. Oak began when Duke had turned around to face him. "What on earth could have possessed you into thinking that it was right, or even legal, for you to impersonate any of Kaiba's Pokémon?"

Duke's emerald green eyes roamed up to the Fearow settled on the edge of the roof, staring balefully down upon the two unwanteds.

"The explanation is simple enough," Duke started, staring right back at the bird. "I don't trust the Kaibas."

"What reason do you have not to?" Prof. Oak queried, completely bamboozled. Seto Kaiba may be a spoiled, rich brat, but he was a _noble_ one, who'd done more than almost all the others in the BPA to preserve the world's Pokémon.

"Well, Gozaburo got away once, didn't he, when Seto was supposed to deliver him?"

"That wasn't… well, he didn't do it on… Kaiba hates his father," Prof. Oak finally stated flatly after his sputterings, unable to come up with a valid excuse for the man who had chewed them out so thoroughly just minutes before.

Turning his eyes back to his colleague, Duke lifted an unconvinced brow. "And, yet, Gozaburo is still free, despite how much Kaiba supposedly hates him. Plus, have you noticed how much he emulates his father in the handling of his Pokémon? That Persian?"

"Hold on a minute, Agent Devlin," Prof. Oak bit out, feeling overly provoked. "Kaiba has done nothing to track down Gozaburo because he's been following directives given to him by the bureau."

"How do you explain what he's turned his Pokémon into?" Duke snapped back. "They're just as vicious as any I've seen within Team Rocket, and then some in regards to that cat."

"I…" Prof. Oak's shoulders dropped. "I don't."

"You can't," Duke countered and began striding off.

Looking up, Prof. Oak watched the giant Pokémon that glared after Agent Devlin.

"You don't consider him to be like Gozaburo, do you?"

The Fearow merely watched Prof. Oak for a moment before spreading its wings and flying back to his master.

**Thanks for reading!**

**Yes, Yami and Yugi are in different bodies. The Millennium Items play no part in this fic, nor do any magical powers, but Yami does exist (just as his own person, who happens to be Yugi's brother). **


	8. The Gang Gets Together

**Update, yay! It definitely took longer (three months) than I expected to get this chapter up, but that's what happens when one becomes a college student, I suppose; homework gets in the way of everything.**

**Again, just as a reminder, Yugi and Yami are two different people with their own bodies in this fic. Artistic license! **

"Get your head in the match, Joey!" Solomon shouted at the boy, himself tired of having to say those words over and over again.

"…Eh? Well, it's not my fault!" Joey argued back, shaking his head to clear it. "You're wretched Dodrio woke me up at dawn again!"

It was true. The three-headed beast was known throughout the area for its rooster-like behavior, and not in a good way. Second to that was its penchant for snacking. Even now, the three heads were bickering amongst each other over the scrap of food Solomon had thrown them in an attempt to quiet them while he worked with Joey. Finally, the sad head was brushed aside by the angry head, distracting them both long enough for the joyous head to gobble it up.

Joey stuck out his tongue at the stupid bird's greedy gut before returning his focus back to Yugi's grandfather.

"I've told you time and again, Joey, don't let your mind become so distracted," Solomon barked.

"It's not my fault!" Joey yelled. His Arcanine growled and barked in agreement.

From the sidelines, Joey's Charmeleon snarled. Not at Solomon, but at the Arcanine. While it was true that the two were teammates of sorts, the Charmeleon had never liked the Arcanine, ever since Solomon had given it to Joey as a Growlithe. The fiery lizard missed the days when it was just himself, a young Charmander at the time, and Joey. But, then, all of these _other_ Pokémon had started showing up: a fat Golbat, a badly-behaved Rattata, a Mankey that was even more aggressive than Charmeleon himself, and, of course, the wretched, upstart Arcanine who took the most attention away from Charmeleon.

Charmeleon _hated_ that dog! Again, it snarled only to be ignored by both the canine and their trainer.

Solomon, however, took note, and shook his head. Joey was definitely coming along as a trainer, reaching great heights in major tournaments, but he still needed to learn the importance of settling the differences not only on the training field, but also within his own ranks of Pokémon.

But, then again, at least Joey wasn't scared of any of his Pokémon, though, that Mankey of his might deserve a bit of fear when being dealt with. Tristan Taylor, on the other hand, was scared of two of his Pokémon, slightly wary of another, and completely overwhelmed by the last. "The Icks," as he called his Exeggucute grouping, seemed to pose a particular problem for Tristan as a trainer. Despite how Solomon kept warning him that if he didn't get used to them now, then he'd never be able to control them when (if) they became and Exeggutor, Tristan still just couldn't seem to bring himself to get close to them. It made the people around him wonder why he'd captured them in the first place. He had the same problem with his Weedle, though not to the same extent. The Squirtle he used to capture them both unfortunately was quite strong-headed, not indicative to helping Tristan along with his Pokémon-related issues. His last Pokémon, his Cubone, was hardly even let out of its pokéball due to a tendency to begin bashing whatever came into sight first with his bone club.

The fact was, and Tristan himself was aware of this, he just didn't have the spirit or will to become that great of a trainer. That didn't mean he didn't try to an extent, but his minimal efforts weren't going to lead to anything.

Tea actually had quite a bit of potential, having bonded exceptionally well with all of her Pokémon, having taken exceptional care to learn all of their personalities and naming them so they'd all have a sense of personal identity. "Seedpod" had been her starter; a daydreaming Chikorita who was very popular with others of her kind at the Pokémon daycare Tea helped run. "Slapstick," her fun-loving Seel, also helped her out, keeping the especially rambunctious and playful Pokémon entertained. Her Wigglytuff, "Snuggles", however, had a hard time interacting with others, despite her cuddly name. The poor thing was a nervous wreck, always wanting to help out, but never quite knowing how to go about doing it. This usually ended with her messing up in some way that, while never too serious, did often cause more work for everybody else.

Tea's newest acquisition, a glossy little Vulpix named "Curlicue" was her trainer's current project of choice. Even as Joey and Solomon now trained, she and Yugi were working with Curlicue.

Yugi and his currently absent brother Yami had a special partnership in regards to their Pokémon. Rather than each having their own particular set, they shared their six Pokémon, and had shared ever since they both chose, or, rather, were chosen by their starter Cyndaquil, now a Quilava. Yami had, for the time being, taken that Quilava, their Sandshrew, and their Golduck with him, while Yugi kept their Kadabra, Ninetales, and Pidgey.

The Pidgey was their most recently caught Pokémon. It was still hardly but a hatchling, and both brothers knew that Yugi was the more nurturing of the two. So, the baby bird spent most of its time with him, not that Yami didn't pull his weight. The Ninetales was kept to act as a mentor for Tea's Vulpix. Kadabra, well, he had a slight bit of an attitude problem, a dangerous thing in a psychic Pokémon. He stayed where Yugi and Yami's grandpa's Alakazam could keep an eye on it.

Everyone but Tristan was outside, the Motos's Pokémon supply store being closed for the day. Tristan had been ordered by Solomon to sit in the shop and simply get used to the Icks, which were confined to a basket in the living room. Tea had sent Snuggles with him, in part because she had such a sweet, charming demeanor that might calm both Tristan and the Icks, but also because, though she loved her Wigglytuff, she didn't want the pink, puffy Pokémon getting in the way of her training with Curlicue.

Tristan was in a state of complete discomfort, occasionally interrupted by high levels of stress whenever Snuggles would get into something she shouldn't, when the doorbell sounded for the shop. Latching onto any excuse to remove himself from the same room as that of the Icks, Tristan, not caring that the shop wasn't supposed to be open, rushed to see who the desperate customers were that still sought entrance despite the prominent 'closed' sign.

Making his way past the shelves of food, toys, and even outfits for Pokémon among the various other items for purchase, Tristan came to the door to find on the other side the familiar face of Professor Oak and the not-so-familiar face of the soon-to-be introduced Bureau of Pokémon Affairs' agent Duke Devlin.

"Nice to see you again, Prof. Oak," Tristan said upon unlocking and opening the door. He greeted the man with a friendly handshake. "Come on in. They're all out back," Tristan informed them, jerking his head back at the same time he gave the black-haired, green-eyed stranger a curious, nearly suspicious look.

They all headed out to find Solomon's Rhydon delivering the defeating blow to Joey's Arcanine (as the Charmeleon smirked on), and Yugi and Yami's Ninetails demonstrating a walk and a waving flair of all of her gorgeously groomed tails that had won her and her trainers multiple Coordinating ribbons for Tea's Vulpix to emulate.

Yugi caught sight of Tristan and the others first and came over to greet them, trusting Ninetails to handle herself and little Curlicue. His and Yami's Pidgey went along for the ride, clinging stubbornly to Yugi's (its mama's) sleeve.

"Hello, Prof. Oak. How did everything go?" Yugi couldn't help himself from inquiring immediately, having known exactly what the professor's "mission" had been for that morning. It had been in the backs of all of their minds throughout the day: whether or not Seto Kaiba would accept their help. For Kaiba's own, prideful sake, Yugi hoped he had.

Prof. Oak sighed as the dark stranger snorted, causing Yugi's hopes to drop.

"Not as well as we'd hoped," Prof. Oak admitted.

"Oh. Well, would you two like to stay for dinner?" Yugi asked, allowing his and Yami's Pidgey to pluck at the cuffs of his sleeves. "You could explain more then."

"Thank you. That would be much appreciated, Yugi," Prof. Oak accepted with a grin. "What about you, Duke?"

The BPA agent shrugged. "Might as well. I don't have any particular urges to head back to Team Rocket just yet."

* * *

They were all sitting down for dinner when the doorbell for the shop rang for the second time that day.

Just before, Duke (after having been thoroughly introduced and well-received) and the professor had been relating the details of their unsuccessful meet with the Kaibas.

"Yeah, he got all ticked that I sent Doppelganger to check him out. Just about busted a blood vessel," Duke had been saying.

Joey had nearly choked on his food as he tried to keep from laughing his ass off, and that was the moment when the next set of visitors announced their presence.

Everyone saw as Duke readied to leap from his chair, becoming completely alert in seconds after having just been nearly telling a joke.

When it was Seto Kaiba in all his corporate glory who walked in, Duke didn't seem to relax all that much.

Kaiba paused in the doorway of the dining room, almost disbelieving his own presences in such a humdrum setting.

His hands were clenched by his side and were trembling. He couldn't _believe_ he was doing this.

His Persian had come with him, and when it entered the room behind him, letting out a low rumble, Seto couldn't help but feel a slight bit reinforced when everyone in the room shrank back from the feline.

"…I've thought… and, despite my _extreme_ lack of confidence in any of you… I'm going to take what I can get," Seto finally announced. His Persian made a _gacking_ sound, as f it knew just how much those words, as insulting and alienating as they were, had stuck in his craw.

After a moment, Prof. Oak spoke up. "Well, that's good. Great. We can start working on strategy, then."

There was a pronounced lack of enthusiastic response from the people gathered until Yugi cleared his throat and said, "Glad to be working with you, Kaiba."

"I do hope you'll understand—" _not_ "—when I'm unable to say the same considering I'm having to settle for less than professional help," Kaiba spat as kindly as he could, his cat again making the gagging sound for him, as he directed a severely dirty look at the professor.

"I don't understand why the BPA doesn't just use their own people rather than recruiting civilians," Tea said in a questioning tone. Seto gave Prof. Oak a look that showed the same idea had crossed his own mind, though perhaps in less polite terms, despite his already knowing the reasons.

Prof. Oak blushed and scratched the back of his head. "We're a bit understaffed at the moment, such that unless we have absolute, concrete evidence to work off of, we can't—"

"What about what Duke's been doing?" Tristan asked, jerking a thumb at the person sitting beside him who'd gone back to quietly working his way through his meal. "Hasn't what he's been doing count as 'evidence'?"

Duke snorted and reached for his water glass.

"Duke has only witnessed low-level crimes and uncovered plans that may _precipitate_ crimes. However, he's not as of yet become a trusted enough member of Team Rocket to have been involved in anything that would warrant BPA's involvement," Prof. Oak explained, still feeling acutely embarrassed at the agency's seeming inability to handle the situations that it had been formed in the first place to handle. "B-Besides, um, as we mentioned to Kaiba, uh, the means that were used to get the information in regards to the date and time of the attack were less than legal, as it were," the professor admitted, rushing.

"So, _Agent_ _Devlin_ has proved to be useless as well as incompetent?" Seto sneeringly asked. He wasn't about to forgive Duke for his spying with that goddamn Ditto.

Duke stopped eating and set his fork down. "You know, you remind me a hell of a lot of someone, _Kaiba_," he started.

"Let's not get into this," Yugi cut in, eyes darting between the two. "What's really important is that we all agree to work on this together, right?"

An awkward silence fell for some time.

"I'm not happy about this," Seto finally reiterated, grinding his teeth as he spoke.

"Yeah, no kiddin'," Joey grumbled.

Looking around at the table at the grouping of antagonistic, uncertain, and slightly bewildered faces, Prof. Oak forced a smile and, with false cheerfulness, spouted, "Okay, let's get this show on the road!"

**Thanks for reading! The next chapter should (better be) getting up tomorrow (feel free to laugh). I want to have the next chapter after that up in around three weeks (again, feel free to laugh). It's written into my weekly planner, so hopefully I'll listen to my own scheduling (okay, even I'm laughing now).**

**Any further information about this chapter and fic in general can be found on my blog, as always. (Give it 'til tomorrow. It's late tonight, and I'm tired.)**


	9. A Chance to Laugh

**It feels good to be up to date with this fic (even if I didn't get this published the day after chapter eight) ^-^. Admittedly, this is a short update, as was the last, but it is still an update. Enjoy!**

Duke had left the impromptu meeting pretty quickly after Kaiba's arrival. It was rather obvious that he was nothing but a distracting presence, and it's not as if he would be of much use anyway. Besides, he still had his assignment to watch and report on Gozaburo's movements.

So, Duke found himself back at Team Rocket's temporary headquarters, wandering through the halls, hoping to find some little clue that could get himself and the bureau involved in the coming havoc more thoroughly. He needed to _do_ something, even if it might end up helping that prick, Seto Kaiba.

Thinking that if Gozaburo's office was empty, he might be able to get his hands on something that would convince the BPA to get their ass in gear, Duke headed off in that direction. Reaching the open door of the office and realizing that there was no one inside, he thought that today just might be his lucky day. If he could just—

"Ah, you made it back, eh, Duke?" Bandit Keith said.

Duke just about jumped out of his skin as he heard that voice and turned to see its owner and Gozaburo sauntering around the corner in his direction.

"Yeah," Duke answered, keeping it at that. He took what he hoped was a casual, non-incriminating step away from the doorway and stuck his hands into his pocket, hoping that he looked just like any other insolent teenager who didn't care all that much for authority.

Gozaburo gave him a once-over and developed a slight, sneering smirk. "Have fun, Devlin?"

Duke shrugged. "Not really."

"Pity." Gozaburo and Keith came to stand in front of one of the newer Team Rocket members.

"…Do you have anything for me to do?" Duke asked, trying to pass off that as his reasons for being here.

"No," Bandit Keith answered. "But, we'll tell you if we need you… As usual."

Duke could see the distrust and hostility building and being directed at him. So, he dismissed himself and hoped, for the millionth time since he'd been assigned this mission, that he hadn't done anything to blow his cover.

What Duke didn't see as he walked past the two was Bandit Keith raise an eyebrow to Gozaburo behind his sunglasses and Gozaburo, after giving Duke's back a suspicious, considering look, gave a firm nod in return.

* * *

Mokuba's Gloom was sulking in the Playroom. Despite how much Mokuba had fought for Plumpness's freedom to stay in the house, the Pokémon's stench could get to him sometimes as well. And, he didn't want to push Seto too far at the moment, so Plumpness was confined to the Playroom for the next several days or so. After that, Mokuba would be devoting his time to getting his Gloom to evolve into a Vileplume, if for no other reason than to try to quell the stink.

Therefore, it was just Mokuba and his Treecko walking through the halls. Actually, that wasn't quite true. Seto's Eevee was trailing them at a distance, and every time Mokuba turned around to look at her or invite her to join them, she'd sneak around and hide behind a corner or chair. Mokuba thought that maybe she was trying to tempt them into a game of hide and seek. Finally, after the sixth time of trying to lure her out into the open, Mokuba nodded to Treecko who went after the Eevee. After a game of tag and Mokuba being required to bring out Kid to help, the two Pokémon were able to catch and bring the squirming Eevee over to him.

Once Eevee was deposited in front of Mokuba, he could see that she wasn't in the playful mood he had thought she had been in. Her ears were drooped and she wouldn't look directly at Mokuba, or Kid or Treecko. There was also a faint wrinkle across her nose and another between her eyes, making her look like she was frowning. But, Eevee never frowned.

"Oh, Eevee, what's the matter?" Mokuba cooed. Eevee's fur bristled, and she still didn't look at him. "Come on, sweetheart—" Eevee suddenly growled and scratched at the hand Mokuba began to proffer. Mokuba yelped, quickly pulling his hand away, and Treecko and Kid made for the irate, teeth-baring Eevee.

"No, stop!" Mokuba ordered, keeping his two Pokémon from attacking. They held off, but both kept shifting their weight, ready to spring on Eevee should she try anything else.

"Eevee," Mokuba started again. But, she wouldn't stand for it. She slunk away from the trio surrounding her with a spitting hiss given in lieu of a goodbye.

"That was odd," Mokuba murmured, disturbed. He wanted to go after her, but she already had a good start on him, and really didn't seem to be in any state to put up with him or anyone else. It made him wonder why she had started following him at all. He decided to ask Seto about it and continued on his way to see him.

Thinking of Eevee's scratch reminded him of how much more aggressive Seto's Persian had become (Eevee's little fit didn't come _close_ to matching what Persian was capable of), and Mokuba recalled Kid and his Treecko to their pokéballs for their own safety when they were still a ways down the hallway from the door to Seto's office. He couldn't help but think as he took the last few steps to his destination that he couldn't wait for this crisis in their lives to be over.

"Seto, something's wrong with Eevee," Mokuba said as he walked into his brother's office. "She's upset, I think."

Seto was setting up a radio of some sort on his desk. Persian was right next to him, watching his hands' every movement, too large to fit on the desktop anymore.

"Hmm," was Seto's response to Mokuba's words.

"…Do you know _what _or_ why_ she's acting strangely?" Mokuba pushed. "She scratched me." He held up his blood-welling hand as evidence. It was actually fairly nasty.

Seto finally looked up and scowled a bit upon seeing the damage Eevee had dealt. "I'll have a talk with her about that."

"I don't want her to get chewed out. I just want to know what's up."

Seto returned to the modified radio. "I told her she can't participate in Thursday's raid. She wouldn't be of any use. Maybe that's what's getting to her."

Mokuba frowned, but, as said before, he didn't want to push Seto too much at the moment, with the raid so close on the horizon. "So, there's been no indication that the date's been moved, then?"

Seto's lips tightened and he shook his head. His Persian sensed his stress and uttered a concerned _hurr_ that Seto ignored.

Mokuba sighed and flopped down into the chair in front of Seto's desk. He… he didn't want to admit it, but he was kind of scared. He remembered living with Gozaburo and the Blasters, and that had been bad enough, and they hadn't explicitly been their enemies back then. He'd come to Seto's office for a bit of comfort, but he really should have known better. Seto had never been all that great when it came to helping to deal with stuff like this.

Mokuba felt a pair of eyes on him and looked up, expecting (hoping for) Seto's but finding them to be Persian's. It was hard to read the emotion in them, and maybe it was just wishful thinking, but Mokuba thought that there might have been a hint of understanding in their depths. For one of the first times, Mokuba felt a sense of camaraderie with the big cat, and he also felt a bolster of courage.

"Seto… I'm worried," he said quickly.

For a moment, Mokuba didn't think that Seto had heard him, but then he slowly nodded, and Mokuba continued briskly.

"It's just that, I don't know if I'll be able to do what I'm needed to. I don't feel like I'm a good enough trainer to be participating in this. And, I'm worried about what will happen if Team Rocket manages to—"

"Mokuba, enough," Seto interrupted, dropping his tools. "I… agree that this is going to be difficult. Especially with no help from that ungrateful Bureau and our having to use those amateur _idiots_ as guards—" Seto had to break off and calm himself, slowing his breathing and unclenching his fists. He still found it difficult to reconcile himself to accepting help from someone like Wheeler or from the two people who'd ever managed to best him at battling.

Seto returned his attention to his little brother. "But, even with all that against us, Gozaburo isn't going to win."

"Why not?" Mokuba asked breathlessly.

Seto shrugged, though he was still obviously tense. "We just can't let him. And, we won't."

Mokuba blinked. He was expecting something a little more factual from his earthbound older brother. But…Mokuba found that this was working, too. Only rarely did Seto not succeed in something that he was determined to do, and he sounded pretty damn determined at the moment.

Mokuba nodded, feeling a bit better.

"Just do your job, which I _know_ you can do, and let me take care of the rest, okay?"

Mokuba grinned. "'Kay… So, what are you working on?"

Seto nearly smiled himself. "I'm going to have Persian and Kabuto keeping guard in here along with some of the better security team members. But, they," Seto nodded at Persian and the Kabuto that Mokuba now saw was nestled between Persian's two giant paws, its red eyes glowing with a kind of satisfaction, "aren't exactly capable of operating a walkie-talkie."

Mokuba gave a burst of laughter. He may still not be entirely confident in his ability to face what was coming, but at least he had this little moment that, while still having things going on around him that were difficult to deal with or even comprehend, gave him a chance to laugh anyway.

**Thanks for reading! Not a very long chapter, but we're getting ready to go somewhere big. This is just a precursor of sorts.**

**The blog post for this chapter is going to be delayed again, for different reasons this time, but it should be up quite soon. Until the next chapter!**


	10. Three Hours 'Til

**I couldn't bring myself to work on chapter sixteen of "The One Friend of Seto Kaiba" on , so we finally get this fic updated.**

"Oh, they're so cute," Tea squealed, clutching a Mudkip to her with one arm and a Cyndaquil to her with the other. She wished she had Serenity or someone female with her. She'd had much the same reaction when Mokuba had first escorted her and the others into the lower levels of the breeding grounds to introduce them to the cuddly reasons why it was so important to keep the Kaiba Estate safe. All the guys had given her weird looks, though Mokuba and Yugi had tried to hide theirs. They just didn't get it. Tea only had her Pokémon to commiserate with.

Her Seel, Slapstick, was nearby, acting as a slide for a miniature colony of Piplups who were all giggling madly, _pip, pip, pip_, while Slapstick emitted cold huffs of laughter. Vulpix was playing tag with several other fire-type baby Pokémon, tumbling all over the room, and Tea's Chikorita was mixing with others of its species and they were all gently rubbing their head-leaves against each other. Of all the Pokémon, they seemed most attuned to the situation above-ground. Tea's Wigglytuff was anxiously checking on each of the groups to try to keep any sort of panic from spreading, acting very much like a mother hen, crooning a calming song nervously under its breath.

"Mm," was Grampa Moto's response to Tea's glee. He was past giving her an odd look at this point. He'd been on his hands and knees playing with the babies too, but the fun had come up short when a Turtwig had decided to start chomping affectionately but firmly on his head, destroying his hat and matting his hair as he was held firmly in place.

"Tea, would you please help me?" Solomon asked when he heard a worrisome crack in one of his knees.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Moto. It likes you!" Tea laughed, the two Pokémon in her grasp squealing in shared delight.

"Please, Tea," Solomon gasped. Another baby Turtwig was starting to become interested in what its brother was doing, and Solomon didn't know if he could take another chewing.

Tea sighed. "Alright. Sorry babies," she crooned to the Cyndaquil and Mudkip before setting them down. They keened at the loss of Tea's affectionate embrace, causing Wigglytuff to come rushing over to soothe them with a song.

Tea rubbed the curl on Wigglytuff's head. "Good girl, Snuggles," she praised, feeling herself becoming drowsy from the tune. She moved away, to Solomon's rescue. Despite Snuggles's well-known clumsiness and general inability to perform under stress, she'd actually been doing quite well today, providing a good deal of help.

"Hey, now," she berated, gently prying the Turtwig from the old trainer's head when she reached them. "That's not very nice," she cooed at the snappy beastie.

Solomon groaned as he stood up, pressing his hands to his lower back. "I'm too old to be doing thi—"

The walkie-talkie that they'd been issued started beeping. Tea, Solomon, and several of Tea's Pokémon all froze at the sound.

The rounding up of all the baby Pokémon to a single floor of the breeding grounds had been a chore and had required every bit of help from the staff of KEBG. Afterwards, Kaiba had ordered all non-security members of the staff to report to Kaiba Corp. and reluctantly handed out walkie-talkies to Yugi and his friends. Then he'd given them their assigned positions and left to join his staff, saying they'd return a couple hours before the supposed time of the raid. Solomon and Tea had been assigned to stay with the baby Pokémon in the KEBG. Yami and Yugi had been placed on either side of the south wall, told to keep to the middle section, Tristan was outside the front entrance, Professor Oak was guarding the northern perimeter along the forest, and Joey had been assigned to keep an eye on the lake. Mokuba was patrolling the area around the Playroom, and Kaiba's Persian and Kabuto had been left to keep watch in Kaiba's office. Everyone had been given a walkie-talkie and told not to use it unless it was a matter of life and death.

The walkie-talkie that Solomon and Tea had beeped again. Tea picked it up from where they'd set it against the tree growing in the middle of the room and keyed in the code just in time to hear Joey's voiced coming through the speakers.

"_Hey, it's me_," Joey said. "_Um, does anyone else have Dugtrios_ _popping up around them and just __**staring**__ at them before disappearing again?_" He sounded worried, and perhaps a little scared.

After sighing with relief, Solomon and Tea shrugged at each other. How would they know? They were on one of the deepest levels of the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds. Not the deepest level in case Team Rocket tried to burrow up through the dozens of feet of concrete that delved below KEBG, so for those two reasons there was no way they'd have had a similar experience to Joey's.

"There's nothing here on our end, Joey," Tea answered for them.

"_Don't worry, Joey_," Yugi's voice reassured. "_I keep seeing them, too_."

"_As do I_," Prof. Oak broke in. "_They're a standard feature of Kaiba's security. He's probably told them about us, so don't worry about them, Joey._"

"'_Probably?'_" Joey repeated.

"_Don't worry about it_," Mokuba put in. "_They're not going to bother you, Joey. They're just helping you guys out there. Watching your backs, as it were._"

"_Well, their 'watching' is freaking me out,_" Joey complained.

"_Don't be such a scaredy-cat, Joey_," Tristan laughed.

"_Hey, Yami, you there? Did you get that job you were interviewing for?_" Joey asked after grumbling a bit, changing the subject. He was talking about the day Kaiba had followed Professor Oak and Duke to the Moto's store and "asked" them to help him defend the estate. Yami had been out and, ironically enough, applying for a job with the Bureau of Pokémon Affairs.

Yami gave a little chuckle. "_I don't know yet. They said they'd get back to me in a couple of weeks, so I'm not expecting anything for at least a month._" Everyone gave a laugh, even Prof. Oak.

"_Well, Kaiba should be grateful anyway_," Joey went on. "_We all know you got it in, so he does in a way have a BPA agent on his side._"

"_I don't think Kaiba's going to view it that way_," Yugi put in.

"_Eh, screw him. You know what I think is the problem with him?_"

"_We don't want to know, Joey_," Tea answered. "_Really._"

"_Yeah. Please don't bad-mouth my big brother_," Mokuba begged. A low growl and clicking sound also came across the radio waves from Persian and Kabuto, neither of whom wanted to hear what Joey had to say about their trainer.

"_Fine_," Joey huffed. "_What do __**you**__ want to talk about, then? 'Cause there's still weird stuff going on over here. I think there's something in the water. And I don't want to be left alone._"

"_What kind of thing is in the water, Joseph?_" Prof. Oak asked, suddenly serious.

"_Nothing to worry about, I guess,_" Joey admitted.

"_This isn't a social event, Joey_," Yami gently reminded. "_We should probably stop talking_."

"_Oh_, _come on, guys!_" Joey whined. "_Can't you guys just stay on a little—_"

"_Get the hell off the radios!_" Kaiba yelled.

* * *

"_Get the hell off the radios!_" Kaiba yelled.

What was with these idiots? Did he not make it explicitly clear that the radios were for emergency uses only? Imbeciles! And Mokuba should have known better and told them to shut up earlier.

He received a chorus of 'sorrys' back, some sincere, others sarcastic, and he made sure to wait until the lot was truly done with their unnecessary chitchat.

He returned his attention to the security team—the _real_ one made up of those already employed of the shifts not currently stationed at the KEBG— that he'd assembled at Kaiba Corp. There were three hours before the raid was scheduled to take place, and Seto had had them gather at KC so he could brief them all at once and not tip-off any spies Gozaburo might have surveying the Kaiba Estate.

…Last night he'd gone to visit the Dragonair. He'd been unable to sleep, unable to stop his mind from going through the plan again and again. Despite knowing he should be getting some sleep since he wouldn't be getting another chance in the next twenty-four hours, Seto had almost run through the tunnels to the exit by the lake, where _Wheeler,_ of all people, was now posted.

It had taken a while, but the Dragonair had finally showed itself, but even its peaceful aura had failed to calm him. Eventually Seto had just swum listless circles around the rocky outcrop in the center of the secluded area of the lake, the Dragonair following and occasionally brushing up against him. It came to the point that Seto simply couldn't go on and had been forced to rest on the outcrop for a while before he'd been able to swim back to the tunnel, where he'd once again noticed a horrible stink. That had woken him up enough to make it back to his room before he'd passed out for a few hours.

Now the adrenaline was what was keeping him going. Three hours until the raid. Three hours.

* * *

Bandit Keith was going to enjoy this. Once again he was in a car across the street from the Kaiba Corp. building, but this time he wasn't performing reconnaissance and he didn't have his "partner" in tow.

At this very moment he had an entire team of Pokémon infiltrating KC, each with their own very important job to do. Zapper, Bandit Keith's Raichu that had been his starter as a Pikachu was on his way to the basement of the building where the Electabuzzes that worked as back-up generators when the power went out lived. He was to take them all out. Keith's Raticate, Chomper, was working on the cables at the actual power station. It wasn't essential that the building be deprived of power, but Bandit Keith thought it would provide dramatic effect and add to the confusion for just a bit longer, as would taking out the surveillance. Kaiba Corporation's cameras had battery packs to keep them going, so he'd also borrowed some Magnemites to take care of those. Also, in hiding near the main exit of the building was Squicker, a Parasect that Bandit Keith didn't own but had been working with for a while. It was waiting until the time when the exodus that was sure to come began, and then it would release spores from its mushroom that would paralyze everyone who tried to leave that way.

There were two other Pokémon on the Team Rocket side that had jobs to take care of, but they both needed the cameras to be taken out before they could be put into action.

Oh, it was going to be fun. Too much planning had gone into this raid to change the date, especially when Bandit Keith had the feeling that punk Duke wasn't quite what he'd seemed and had tipped Seto off. But they could change the time and set up a diversion. So the raid had been moved up several hours and Bandit Keith had been sent to cause a stir at Kaiba Corp.

Bandit Keith smirked. He was not only helping to bring about the objectives of Gozaburo and Team Rocket, but also helping bring his own vendetta to fruition. The day when Keith had been a Blaster and Seto had locked him in that closet, he had lost so much respect from his peers and his pride had taken a nasty hit. Well, now he was going to return the favor and make Seto's pride take _more_ than just a hit.

Oh, yes, this was _definitely_ going to be fun.

* * *

"Right, head out."

Seto gave a sigh that wasn't what one would call in relief, not quite. He did feel slightly more confident now that he had a more professional team heading to defend the breeding grounds, at least. He knew he wouldn't be entirely contented until tomorrow morning, and only if he had Gozaburo in custody by then.

"Sir?" Roland asked.

"What is it, Roland?" Seto asked irritably as he stalked down the halls. Roland was having trouble keeping up, but Seto was not about to delay his return to the mansion simply so that Roland wouldn't have to stretch his legs a bit.

"Sir, it's just that our security here has reported—"

It was when Seto and Roland rounded the corner to head to the elevators, where several of the people who would be escorting them were waiting, that in a room to the side halfway between the two groups, Bandit Keith's Electrode exploded, filling the hall with a momentary bright white light before blasting everyone off their feet. Only a moment or two later the entire electrical grid surrounding the Kaiba Corporation building went down.

**Thanks for reading! What a lovely cliffhanger. Nothing like an explosion to end a chapter with, ne? **


	11. Post Explosion Aftermath

**I have to say that I'm very pleased with myself for getting this out so comparatively early, especially considering how much action we have going on in this chapter. Let the post-explosion aftermath begin!**

Seto woke up coughing plaster dust from his lungs, unable to see anything. Coughing again, Seto did his best to call Roland's name. He could barely hear himself. Trying again, Seto loudly gasped, "Roland!" His voice still didn't carry very far. He heard crashing from the floor above and Seto was forced to cover his head as best he could as more plaster and larger objects fell through the ceiling and into…whatever room he was in.

The bomb or whatever it was had gone off several feet in front of Seto and to the right. From the little Seto remembered after the blast, he and Roland had both been blown through at least one wall, maybe two, perhaps more. He had no clue what had happened to the members of his escort that were waiting by the elevator.

He tried to get up on his hands and knees but something was pinning him down. He struggled and tried to pull himself out from whatever it was. When he found he couldn't free himself he once more called for Roland and received no answer.

Something was wrong with the back of his head too he was starting to realize. Even if there had been enough light to see by (there wasn't any at all), Seto had the feeling he wouldn't be able to focus his eyes very well if at all. When Seto felt a deeper darkness closing in on him again, he had only a moment to wonder if it was a concussion responsible for his sudden need to sleep.

Sometime later Seto was woken by the sound of fluttering from above followed by a small ruckus as something landed in the rubble surrounding him.

"_Farfetch'd, Farfetch'd_."

With Kaiba Corporation being a Pokémon-focused company, there were many jobs that were filled by Pokémon. Lickitungs were installed in the mail room, Electabuzzes in the basement were used as back-up generators (though they weren't doing their job right now when they were _needed_), and Farfetch'ds were used as messengers and carriers throughout the company departments, so chances were high that this particular Farfetch'd was friendly.

"Hey," Seto called. It felt like his throat was coated in grime.

"_Far?_" It sounded like the duck-like creature was wandering over in his general direction. "_Far?_" it queried again.

"Over here," Seto managed to get out. Suddenly he felt the bird's leek stalk poking him in the cheek. "Suitcase. Find my suitcase and bring it to me," he ordered. He'd been carrying all of his Pokémon that weren't stationed at the house in their pokéballs, and those pokéballs were in that suitcase which had gone flying from his hand somewhere in his flight across the hall and through the walls.

"_Fetch'd!_" the Farfetch'd squawked and made a movement that Seto thought might have been a salute with its leek.

As the Farfetch'd went about its actually rather important mission Seto did his best to continue to work his way out from under what he'd decided was the desk from the office above with miscellaneous bits of the building piled on top of it. It wasn't just his head that was hurting anymore, though that particular pain wasn't nearly as harsh as it once was, but also a large portion of his back where he figured the desk had struck on impact.

Seto had managed to pull himself out as far as his hips when a dim glow started humming form the lights. One Electabuzz at least was still operational. By the light it was able to provide the building with, Seto could see that it was in fact a desk pinning him. It had fallen through when the upper floor had collapsed due to a lack of supporting walls below it. The blast itself hadn't reached quite this far, but projectiles from it (Seto for one) had done quite the job smashing their way through every obstacle in their path. No wall was left untouched and only a few were still standing. Seto could potentially see all the way to the other side of the building if the lights would come back on all the way.

Seto ignored the destruction for now and was finally able to extricate himself from under the heavy desk when the Farfetch'd returned, dragging a dented and scratched, but whole, silver-colored suitcase behind it.

Seto gave a grunt of acknowledgement to the Pokémon before taking the case off its hands. Flipping open the locks and throwing the case open, Seto saw that all the pokéballs had been left unharmed and felt an odd rush of relief tumble through him. But he had no time for pondering that now. He called his Gengar out of its pokéball.

The ghost-type Pokémon was not wearing its trademark sinister grin when it erupted from its confines, but looked over the ruined area with a sober, almost distraught expression. When it finally returned its attention to its trainer, Seto had only three words for it: "Search and destroy."

The Gengar nodded with its entire body and then dove literally into the shadows. Seto had no doubt that Team Rocket, for whom else could it be, had at least one person if not several watching and relaying the events at the KC headquarters back to Gozaburo. Seto wouldn't feel bad at all when his Gengar caught up with the bastards, not after what they'd done.

He'd turned back to the Farfetch'd and just told it to try to find any other survivors when the walkie-talkie he'd also placed in the briefcase started beeping. He needed to warn Mokuba what was coming because there was no doubt that Team Rocket wouldn't be taking advantage of this moment of surprise and chaos. When he keyed in the code all he heard was a furious clicking and hiss-spitting before Joey Wheeler's voice came over through the static-filled lines.

"_Guys, what's happening out there!_" he shouted.

Static.

Yugi's voice came over the wavelengths next. "_Yami, I'm sending Pidgey to help you—_"

"_No, don't! He's too young. I—_" Yami was cut off.

"_Yam—!_" Yugi was cut off as well.

"_Guys!_" Wheeler yelled again.

"_Power's gone out in the house_," Mokuba was next to detail the dismantling of the security at home.

"_Same at the breeding grounds_," Tea broke in. Seto could hear the crying of baby Pokémon in the background as she spoke. "_We've still got back-up power, though._"

"_Just stick to the plan, Tea,_" Professor Oak reassured in his most calming voice. The effect was shattered, however, when he ever so politely asked Joey to send any Pokémon that he could possibly spare. It seemed that Wheeler was the only one not under attack or in some sort of peril.

Joey responded, "_Gah! The only ones I have that could make it in time are Mankey and Golbat._"

"_So, send them._" A bit more urgency had slipped into Prof. Oak's voice as he said this.

"_I can't! My Golbat's too fat to fly and Mankey won't listen to anyone but me!_"

Seto was going to _kill_ Wheeler for being so useless at such a time as this! That was if Team Rocket didn't get to him first.

So Yugi and Yami were under attack at the south wall, the house and KEBG had both lost main power with Mokuba, Tea, and Solomon stuck inside their respective buildings, Prof. Oak was under attack at the northern boundary, along the forest line, Wheeler was doing absolutely _nothing_ to help out at the lake. That accounted for everyone except—

"_Tristan, are you okay? Tristan!_" Joey asked, which was apparently the only thing he could do.

…No answer was received until the sound of shrieking tires and metal grating against metal was heard followed by more static.

* * *

Seto soon found out that not everything had escaped without damage in his suitcase. The walkie-talkie could tune in to the others' signals just fine but was completely unable to broadcast. Seto had futilely yelled his little brother's name into the mic and had begun to think that perhaps something had happened to Mokuba until he'd tried to get Wheeler's attention, since he knew _he_ was still all right, but had still not been given an answer. Seto already knew that the phone services for the house would be taken down, but he'd tried to get in contact with Mokuba that way as well only to get a busy signal again and again and again. The only way to check to him was to get back to the Kaiba Estate and do it in person.

There was no time to check for any other survivors. Seto carefully picked his way through the debris, eventually finding his way to the area where the Electrode had gone off. A giant circle had been carved out of the building's innards, extending in several yards all around. He worked his way around it, being careful to not to get to close, both to avoid having anything else fall on him and to keep from falling through the weak floor. Seto had to shove another desk out of the way of it, but he found the door leading to the amazingly undamaged emergency staircase.

He tried his best to hustle but after a few flights he was finding himself getting dizzy and was forced to take a break. By the time Seto felt he could go on some weird sounds were coming from lower in the stairwell. Seto risked looking over the edge and was nearly smacked in the face by the two Gengars that were flying up the stairs while simultaneously trying to rip each other to shreds. One of them had to be Seto's.

"Gengar!" he shouted up at the two flying purple shapes. There was no point; they'd already gone too far.

Seto continued down the stairs. He'd need to get another look at the other Gengar before he came to any conclusive decision, but if it had a scar across the area where its nose should be, then Seto knew that Gengar. It was Gozaburo's.

_Goddamnit!_ Seto thought, speeding up his pace as much as he could, clinging to the railing when he felt the vertigo coming on.

He tripped down the last few stairs and fell full-tilt through the door that led into the far end of lobby.

The first thing he noticed was the horrid smell that pervaded the area. It made his headache all the worse. The second thing he noticed was the dozens of bodies that were on the ground surrounding the front entrance where a cloud of spores was slowly dispersing. From the dim glow in the building and a couple of streetlights outside, Seto could just make out the Parasect responsible. But it looked like his Gengar had done its job before being attacked, the Parasect being a crumpled mass incapable of doing any more damage.

Seto staggered across the room to the nearest collapsed person, keeping his sleeve in front of his nose so as to keep anything else from contaminating his lungs. It was a member of the security detail that was supposed to be guarding the breeding grounds and house tonight. Looking around he saw that almost everyone there was one of the handpicked team he'd assembled to protect the estate. He crouched down and felt the man's pulse. It was still beating strong.

"Yeah, they're alive."

Seto jolted to his feet, nearly toppling over in the process. "Keith," he spat once he was upright.

Even with the gas mask covering his face and his sunglasses missing for once, the ever-present bandana and the cruel, brash gleam in his eyes was enough to identify him.

"Nice to see you again, too, _Seto_," Keith purred, his voice muffled and his eyes squinting with dark mirth. "My compliments to your Gengar. He took out Squicker before I even had a chance to give the old man's Gengar's pokéball a roll. Don't worry though, it should take care of yours pretty quick, and then it will be your turn to experience what my Parasect felt." Bandit Keith's voice had gotten progressively, dangerously low as he'd spoken.

Even though he hated it, Seto knew what he had to do. The Pokémon that he had with him, other than Gengar, were all in the suitcase. He didn't know what Pokémon Keith had (he seemed to remember a particularly violent Pikachu that Keith had stolen and made his own the last time they saw each other) or whether they were already out or not, if they were hiding in the abundant shadows. By the time he got his case open and a pokéball in his hand, he could have been attacked who knows how many times. He cursed to himself for not having a pokéball ready to go. The only option he had at the moment was a very simple one: To run. And he did.

Turning on his heel, Seto sprinted as best as he could back to the emergency stairwell.

"Magnemite!" Bandit Keith yelled.

The Pokémon dropped from the ceiling and almost landed on Seto as he ran under it. But the Magnemite's goal wasn't to attack him. When Seto reached the metal door and tried to haul it open, it resisted him. The Magnemite was keeping it shut with magnetism, changing its charge so as to match that of the door.

"No!" Seto couldn't help but shout. He heard Keith laughing in the background.

The Magnemite was closing in on Seto, one of its magnets extended with a blue current of electricity moving between the two prongs, much like a taser. Seto reacted purely on instinct, grabbing up his suitcase with both hands, and swung, bashing the Magnemite in one of its many eyes. The Pokémon went flying and Seto's suitcase broke apart, scattering bits of itself, the walkie-talkie, and his pokéballs across the floor. One of the pokéballs burst open and out came Seto's Cloyster.

"Tackle it!" Seto screamed, pointing at the still-stunned Magnemite. His Cloyster didn't hesitate, rushing the Magnemite, catching it on its spikes and ramming into and through the lobby's wall. Seto didn't waste any time watching, instead grabbing the remaining pokéballs and the walkie-talkie and high-tailing it towards the door to the stairs.

The further he got from the remaining spores the better his head felt and by the time he made it to underground garage he felt almost normal again. A lot of the dust had finally left his lungs as well, and down here, nearer to the area the Electabuzzes were stationed, the lights were a bit brighter. He was starting to feel like he had a chance as he made his first few steps into the garage when he was nearly clothes-lined by a Machoke. He managed to duck just in time to avoid the muscled arm stuck out in his path by the Pokémon he hadn't seen hiding in the shadow of a cement pillar.

He wanted to keep running and find a car, but he knew there was no way that he could out-distance the Pokémon and, just from a brief glance around the garage, he could see that most of the cars were worthless, their hoods and the engines beneath them having been pummeled by the Machoke. 'Pummeled' was the best word too, since now Seto remember Keith having to come into possession of a Machop while a Blaster at the Kaiba Estate and naming the wretched creature Pummeler from its tendency to punch everything he was introduced to. He vaguely remember how Keith would coo to it encouragingly as it had done such.

He wasn't cooing anymore when he came down the stairs after Seto, ripped off his gas mask, and shrieked, "_Get him, Pummeler!_"

Seto still had his Gyarados and Nidorino in their pokéballs. Gyarados would be able to take them both Machoke and Bandit Keith out quickly enough, but there wasn't enough room for him. And there was no way he was letting his Nidorino out. The only thing it could serve as would be a distraction and only a momentary one at that. But maybe he could poison them! He just needed enough time to be able to sneak up on them. Seto could provide that.

Taking up his Nidorino's pokéball he threw it under a car off to the side as he continued to run and then dove under a car himself. It was a tight fit, but not for long. The Machoke caught up with him and didn't even bother getting him out or following him. Pummeler just picked up the car and threw it off of him. Seto scrabbled and rolled under another ruined car and the process repeated again and again.

He heard Keith cursing all the while, damning the time wasted, and then Keith suddenly yelled, "Pummeler, look out!"

But Nidorino had already shot his venomous spines into the Machoke by the time the beast turned around. Seto was halfway under the next car when the Machoke went down to one knee and then finally crashed flat on its face. Perhaps his Nidorino wasn't as worthless as he'd always considered it to be. It had carried out Seto's wishes perfectly without Seto actually having to tell him. Seto wormed his way out of the car and gave his Pokémon a grateful look as it trudged in his direction. When it got nearer, he briefly rubbed it on its snout with his knuckles. "Good boy," he said to the Nidorino for the first time ever since he'd caught it as a Nidoran.

The Nidorino nibbled his fingers affectionately in return, seeming to relax as well as become more attentive from the sudden positive attention. It was able to notice way before Seto the Raticate creeping up on him with its giant front teeth bared and itching to sink them in his neck. The Nidorino leaped and landed on the Raticate who began screeching. The two rolled around on the ground as Seto came to the decision that he need to incapacitate Keith _now_.

At the moment the Blaster was blocked from sight by a pillar. Leaping to his feet, Seto began to make his way around it, not feeling as if he had the time to waste in blind-siding him, chosing to instead face him head-on.

A bullet glanced off the pillar as Seto rounded it and pure reflex had Seto diving back behind it as another shot sounded off.

"You're ruining everything, Seto!" Keith screamed, firing again. "You've always been ruining everything for me. The Blasters could have gone so much farther if I'd had a higher position, but you had to pull that stunt with that goddamn Spearow of yours and I spent the week in a closet, losing your father's faith in me every second that I couldn't get out. I still have scars from your Spearow attacking me, you know!"

"You deserve them!" Seto couldn't help from shouting back. "They were nothing in comparison to what you did to it when you caught him. You're going to rot in hell for that!"

"Shut up!" He fired off two more rounds that skittered off the pillar. He sounded closer.

The elevators were across from where Seto was hiding. If he could force the doors open he might be able to climb down the cables to the next floor of the garage where _his_ cars were, but he would also be putting himself at risk of being shot by Keith with the angle change. His Nidorino was still fighting with the Raticate in the shadows, so there was no help coming from that area just yet. There was still no room for his Gyarados. He wished his Fearow was with him. It would be a wonderful thing to take Keith out for good with that particular Pokémon of his. But he was at home, keeping watch over everything from above.

Seto was just getting ready to run for the elevator (what other choice did he have?), when weird sounds starting coming from behind the doors, crashing, a sudden loud snap, and sliding metal. The sounds of the elevator car falling down the shaft to the basement. Seto couldn't run there now when Bandit Keith had his attention there. What was he going to—?

The doors blasted out from the inside and Seto's Cloyster burst onto the scene. Keith fired and the Cloyster closed its shell over its face. The bullet just ricocheted off its shell.

"Shit! I'm not done with you, Seto," Keith promised before he turned tail and ran. Cloyster couldn't go after him with its shell covering its eyes without Seto directing it, which would mean he could have to expose himself to the possibility of being shot.

Keith started laughing as he came to a halt a fair way away. "I may not be able to shoot you, Seto, but I can shoot your Nidorino." Seto stopped breathing. No. But Nidorino was still fighting with Keith's Pokémon. Seto could hear it. He couldn't destroy Seto's Pokémon without destroying his own, right?

"Sorry, Chomper." There was his answer. Keith didn't even sound like he meant it.

Seto was ready to throw himself out from behind the pillar to attract Keith's fire himself when he realized that there were two red eyes staring up at him from where his shadow would be if the pillar's didn't block it out.

"Gengar?" he whispered. The ghost-type Pokémon rose up and there was no scar across its nose. It was Seto's.

"Stop him, Gengar," he ground out. He wasn't about to lose one of his Pokémon to that bastard Blaster.

The Gengar was gone and Keith was screaming before Seto had time to register his Pokémon's absence.

_I guess it's Keith who's going to be experiencing what his Parasect felt_.

* * *

Tristan had been sent to man the front gates of the Kaiba Estate. He didn't know why he'd been asked to come along. Everything had made a lot more sense when Kaiba had made it clear they were only a token force until his real security team owed up, but still. When a guy is scared of his own Pokémon, a person is not inclined to ask them to use them to fend off others' much more bloodthirsty Pokémon.

He knew that everyone else had out at least one or two Pokémon to help assist them, but he'd decided to keep his in his pokéballs. They weren't going to be much use either way. Unfortunately, now he had nothing to amuse or even distract himself with, so, despite the seriousness of the situation, he felt his mind wandering. First he thought a little about why he couldn't actually be inside the gates at the guard post set up there. Then, he thought about why everyone was where they were anyway. Shouldn't more people be in the house or in the breeding grounds? Why have Joey by a lake of all places? After that there was a little spike of panic when he heard the walkie-talkie beeping followed by amusement when Joey admitted to being creeped out by ripples. How scary! After that he just sat on the grass, pulling up the leaves one by one to try to amuse himself. All he could see was the road stretching out on either side far into the distance, party followed by the wall which gave out to forest in one direction and grasslands in the other. More forest was across the asphalt.

Occasionally he would see movement in or between the trees and it always turned out to be a Pokémon. Most of them looked wild. _No wonder why Kaiba is such a good trainer_, Tristan thought. _He has all these Pokémon for the taking right outside his front door_. But, now that he thought about it, Kaiba actually didn't have all that many Pokémon that would be found in regions like this, so that blew his theory to hell.

As he pulled the grass up, Tristan eventually had to move a bit beyond his original position so as to not tear up too much in one area. He doubted that Kaiba would notice or even care if his yard had a bald spot in it, especially not a tiny one, but he'd really prefer not to get one of Kaiba's famous chewing-outs. Just hearing about them was enough from Duke and Prof. Oak.

Eventually he found some grass that he couldn't pull up no matter how much he tried. It simply wouldn't come free of the soil. Finally, out of sheer boredom and frustration, Tristan shoved both of his hands deep into the "grass" and pulled up.

"What the hell?"

He'd found one of the entrances to the Kaiba Estate's tunnel system.

Tristan may not be the smartest guy, but he wasn't a total moron either. This must have been the reason that he and the others were so specifically placed, to keep Team Rocket from using these tunnels as easy access points. Kaiba really should have told them. Prof. Oak was probably in on it, too, now that Tristan thought about it. When they'd been divvying up the positions at the breeding grounds, both Kaiba and Prof. Oak insisted that the older man be given that particular spot to patrol. Something about the tunnel there must be important in some way that only the two of them knew about. Mokuba too since he had nodded solemnly when Prof. Oak was assigned to that area.

There may or may not be a good reason for Kaiba not informing them of what exactly they were guarding, but Tristan had to make a decision in regards to whether or not to tell the others and he believed that, in this particular case, power was knowledge.

He heard the cars speeding along the road as he was keying in the code to make the walkie-talkie operational. The cars were going too fast and too recklessly Tristan could now see in the distance down the dark road. With hardly a thought, Tristan dove into the tunnel, dropping the walkie-talkie and not realizing for several seconds that if the tunnel itself were their destination he was screwed. Leaving the only form of communication he had above, Tristan worked his way down the ladder that was bolted to the side of the cement tunnel and moved back several feet so that he could still hear what was going on but would also have ample time to run if he heard the vehicles stop.

But, they didn't stop. Tristan heard them approach, hardly lessening their speed at all, heard the tires screech, and then heard the sound of the first car bashing through the front gates full force. The other cars followed and quickly the sound of their passing faded into the background.

Tristan was slow to leave the tunnel, but he eventually did. Four different sets of skid marks covered the road. The two halves of the gate were swinging uselessly on their hinges, twisted and indented from the force of the car hitting them where they met. Tristan saw tire tracks that completely ignored the winding drive and simply took off across the grass, tearing up the sod in a way that made what Tristan did while he was waiting for something to happen seem like child's play, which it had been.

After a moment of shock where he took it all in, Tristan rushed to find his walkie-talkie. This was it. Team rocket was several hours early, but here they were. Where was Kaiba? They needed him and the security he'd promised he'd bring right now. He was the only one who knew that those people were even here. That put more urgency in his quest to find the walkie-talkie.

He did find it, but not in the state he'd left it. One of the cars, maybe more had run over it in their mad dash into the estate. It was a flattened mix of metal and plastic in the grass near the tunnel entrance.

Tristan was debating whether to use the tunnel or to run straight up to the house (which no longer had its lights on anywhere that he could see), and he didn't hear the next car pull up.

"What happened?" Tristan spun around and there was Duke, leaning out of the driver's window, a look that showed both alarm as well as an odd sense of control over the situation on his face.

"Team Rocket, they're here," Tristan told him, rushing over and ducking into the passenger seat, hesitating a moment when he found a Charmander already sitting there before picking it up and gently moving it to the back as it growled indignantly, his fear of Pokémon momentarily forgotten. "Hurry, we have to get up to the house or the breeding grounds and help them out."

Duke shook his head as he whipped out a cell phone. "I have a better idea." He took off down the road at full speed while saying into the phone, "Sir, this is Agent Devlin, we need _everybody_ out at the Kaiba Estate _right now_. Gozaburo and Team Rocket finally made their move."

**Thanks for reading! Really didn't expect that last portion to be from Tristan's point-of-view, but sometimes you just have to go where the story takes you. And I know that I said Eevee would be getting her little moment here, but that scene has been moved to the next chapter and instead we got to see Seto appreciating his Nidorino a bit more. Not the trade people may have wanted, but it's taking us to a place where it will become a little easier for Seto to accept Eevee down the road.**


	12. Attack Here, Attack There

**Hey, I'm back! I feel like I'm finally back on schedule (which, for me, means that I'm late with absolutely everything). The final chapter of this fic was actually scheduled to be up last weekend. **

Bandit Keith had still been breathing when Seto had briefly checked on him. His eyes had been open but hadn't registered when Seto ran his hand through his line of sight. A dribble of drool had escaped Keith's mouth and he'd done nothing about it. For all Seto knew it could have been a permanent state for Keith from now on, or he might snap out of it any minute. Either way Seto had left his Gengar to keep watch over what was left of the Kaiba Corp. building while he himself made his way back to the house and the breeding grounds.

The Machoke had managed to trash most of the cars in the underground garage, but Seto, after five minutes of blazingly frustrated searching, finally found a vehicle still in working order. He'd piled in and raced out of the garage, onto the evacuated streets outside of KC, and sped through the city, deciding already to keep going even if the entire Domino City Police Department were to come after him in their squad cars. Fortunately enough he didn't have to do that, though it might have been a way to get the authorities involved since the BPA still didn't seem to be doing anything.

Now he was out of the city and nearing the estate, the walkie-talkie out in the passenger seat beside him, relaying to him every detail of the fight that he could get. Mokuba had stopped responding over the radio, as had Gardner and Solomon Moto. Seto couldn't decide which was more disturbing. Persian and Kabuto were also out of touch, but at least Wheeler had finally gotten his ass in gear and joined Prof. Oak at the northern border of the property, and apparently the wild Pokémon of the area were also lending a hand to their battle. Yami Moto, Yugi Moto, and Tristan Taylor were all still beyond contact. For the estate's sake Seto hoped that they also were receiving help from their wild friends, even if there was no way to know about it.

He'd reached the walls of the property and soon came upon the sight of the mangled gates of the entrance.

"No," he growled, and stomped on the gas. He made the turn through the gates at speeds that were beyond dangerous, and he felt the back corner of the car bounce and scrape along the stone as he raced past. In the headlights' glow, he saw the torn up turf from other cars leading straight up to the house and followed them, the long, doubly curving driveway once again ignored.

When he neared the house, he looked up into the tree outside his office to see if his Fearow was there. It wasn't. But Seto's attention was quickly diverted to a beam light shining in his office just beyond the Pokémon's customary branch. Someone was in there.

Seto nearly ran into the single car parked outside of the front doors, its doors open and overhead light glowing, bathing the empty interior. The license plates had been ripped off at some point. Stolen. He braked and skidded to a stop inches from the abandoned car before ripping off his seatbelt and throwing open the car door. He paused just long enough to grab the walkie-talkie next to him and make sure that he had all his pokéballs with him before he bailed from the car and ran for the door. The glass of the oak doors had been shattered and one of the doors was on the ground, the wood cracked and splintered.

Seto had known the stupid doors would never hold up to any sort of assault.

He slowed as he strode through the space where the door had been. He wanted to rush up to his office and see who it was that was snooping in there. Maybe it was Mokuba, trying to find a way to get in contact with his brother, but maybe it was someone else. Some random member of Team Rocket. A Blaster. Gozaburo himself.

Seto was wishing about now that he'd taken Keith's gun when he'd had the chance. It was dark in the giant foyer, with the only light gleaming off the moon through the skylight. Beyond that giant square of moonlight, everything else was dark to the point that Seto was unable to make out even the furniture that he knew was there. And he knew he was illuminated from behind by the lights of the cars that both he and Team Rocket had left blazing. He slunk back and turned both sets of headlights off, hoping it might give him an advantage, or at least get on the same level with whoever might be inside, lying in wait for him to arrive.

The walkie-talkie suddenly shrieked and this time Seto could clearly hear Mokuba. "_Seto! Get Seto—_" The rest blurred into a garbled load of sound before cutting off again.

Seto took off across the moonlit foyer. To hell with precaution; there was no longer any time to wait, not when Mokuba was calling for him.

Here was the plan, what little of one he had: Skip the office, find Mokuba, get him out of here. Mokuba was most likely in the Playroom still. Hopefully, anyway. Once he found him—

Something flew at his face when he was directly under the center of the skylight, just as he heard glass crashing above him. Whatever had hit him knocked him to the floor as a jaw full of serrated teeth snapped where Seto's head and torso would have been.

The back of Seto's head smacked against the tiled floor of the foyer, right where his already sore bump was located. He couldn't help the shout of pain that erupted from his mouth that was joined in by whatever had thrown itself at his face.

"_Eeeeeeee!_"

It took a moment before Seto recognized the sound, a moment he really didn't have, and another moment for Seto to put a name to the creature that was currently running madly across his chest and batting at his face, trying to get his attention and get him moving.

"…Eevee?"

For a moment I looked like two of her were sitting on his chest, his vision having gone awry after once again hitting his head. Eventually the double-vision resolved itself and Eevee's worry-creased face became clear in the darkness. Sensing movement to his right, Seto wrapped his arms around his cutest Pokémon and rolled as fast as he could to his left, into the shadows until he rammed up against an old-fashioned loveseat that was a throwback to Gozaburo's time as head of the household.

Keeping his arms around her, Seto whispered into one of her large quivering ears, "Thank you, Eevee." He heard her purr and felt her rub her head under his chin before squirming from his grasp and standing in front of him, ready to defend.

Unfortunately Seto didn't know how effective she would be against the raging Aerodactyl in the middle of the room. It had lost sight of them, but if it knew any fire attacks at all, that wouldn't be a problem for long, one way or another. Seto knew he needed to do something, but his head was hurting so much still. He was stunned and, while it was becoming easier to think again, Seto didn't think there would be enough time for him to recover his full faculties before the Aerodactyl found them.

Eevee had begun shivering and growling low in her chest. Not loud enough for the Aerodactyl to hear, but enough that Seto definitely could. Carefully getting to his hands and knees, Seto brought out her pokéball, ready to call her back before she could get hurt. The Aerodactyl was screeching and thrashing around in the middle of the foyer, awkward and angry to be grounded. Seto could see the shadows caused by its protruding ribs where there should have been a sleek, round body. It had been starved.

Eevee's growling grew worse as the emaciated Aerodactyl swung its head in their direction and kept it there, its nostrils quivering and dark eyes darting occasionally drifting over its quarry without registering for the time being.

Suddenly Eevee's growling stopped and Seto glanced over to see her staring at the hole in the skylight. A shadow passed over it just as the Aerodactyl caught sight of them. Seto could see the slim, almost nonexistent line of dark green iris around its giant pupil as they caught each others' eye. It lunged forward as Seto's Fearow dropped through the skylight, giving a harsh cry as it did so.

The Aerodactyl jerked out of the way enough to avoid being impaled by the bird's beak, but the Fearow still managed to cause a vicious tear in the dinosaur-like beast's wing. The scream it let out snapped Seto back to himself just in time to avoid being hit by the Aerodactyl's tail as it whipped out as the Pokémon leaped back and spun around to protect itself. Seto and Eevee ducked out of the way to either side of the fighting pair.

Welts were formed all over Fearow's body Seto was able to see and it worried him. Fearow had already been fighting and he lacked the desperation of the starving Aerodactyl. Who had Fearow been fighting?

The answer was provided when a throbbing buzz pervaded the room. Something _else_ was coming through the broken skylight, a pissed-off Beedrill missing an antenna as well as the eye below where it had been, with a series of fresh slashes across its thorax and abdomen. One of its hind wings was shredded to nearly nothing, causing it to fly erratically. It did its best to dive for Seto when it caught sight of him.

Seto fingered another pokéball of his free from his jacket, ready to dive to the side so as to give this Pokémon enough room to maneuver in a fight against the Beedrill. However he really needed to get out of the habit of forgetting his Eevee; she was so much more useful than what he gave her credit for. As the Beedrill swerved towards him, little Eevee leaped onto Seto's shoulder (scaring him nearly to death in the process) and from there to the Beedrill face, biting and clawing at its one good, remaining eye.

Seto took the opening Eevee gave him to move far enough away from both fights currently in progress so as to be able to unleash his Pokémon.

"Eevee, move!" The moment she was clear, Seto unleashed his Gyarados. Despite trying to give it room, his Gyarados still managed to smack Seto with its tail and send him reeling for a second before it set upon the near-blinded Beedrill with a ground-shaking roar. The Beedrill didn't stand a chance, but Seto wasn't about to stick around.

"Help Fearow when you're done!" he called after his angry sea dragon as he started sprinting for the hall that would lead him to the Playroom the fastest. "Eevee!" As she bounded up to him he recalled her to her pokéball. He might need her later.

Seto made it a few steps into the dark hallway before he noticed the red and yellow of the flared hood of the Arbok waiting for him. He backed up pretty damn quickly when the snake flashed its fangs and lunged after him, forcing him back into the warzone that was the foyer.

It didn't actually surprise Seto that Gozaburo had left so many dangerous Pokémon concentrated in this one area, no doubt intending them for Seto. It was just his style to just randomly throw things at his problems, hoping one or another knocked it out before it reached him. Well, Seto was _not_ going to be knocked out, and he _was_ going to reach Gozaburo, and then he was going to knock _him_ out.

The Arbok lunged again and Seto nearly tripped into the fight between his Gyarados and the somewhat recovered Beedrill which was harrying and irritating its opponent from the air. Fearow and Aerodactyl had taken flight as well, the first more easily than the latter. The bird and dinosaur dove and twisted around Gyarados, annoying it further as well as causing the Beedrill to dance out of both their and the Gyarados' way, but also allowing Seto's Gyarados to take a break from its battle and see the trouble that Seto was in.

With another roar that nearly burst Seto's eardrums, the Gyarados raged forward and rammed headfirst into the snake pursuing Seto. Before he did, the Arbok lashed out one last time and its fangs grazed Seto, tearing his jacket open down the side but just missing his flesh. Two pokéballs tumbled out, Gyarados' empty one and Nidorino's.

The pink Pokémon that tumbled out as the pokéball broke open on the floor looked beaten and ragged after its fight with the Raticate and Machoke less than an hour ago (it felt like so much longer). Sensing the danger behind it, the Nidorino released its poisonous spines right into the face of the thrashing Arbok, just missing the Gyarados who was already returning to his fight with the Beedrill.

Thinking there might be even more surprises waiting for him if he went directly for the Playroom, Seto headed for the stairs. There was no more time to spend dallying around in the midst of so many fights. He was going to go to his office. With only Eevee and Cloyster at hand should he need them, he required reinforcements. He'd pick Persian and Kabuto up in his office and take the tunnel from there to the Playroom. With that section having been built after Gozaburo had run off, so with any luck he might not know about it.

Seto met no resistance as he ran through the second floor hallways, bouncing off the walls when he took corners too fast, sliding on the rugs and runners. He could hardly believe that Gozaburo hadn't left _something_ for Seto should he come up here, but it wasn't until Seto was nearing the door of his office that anything sprung at him or was even _there_ to attack him. However, that did change.

As he spun around the corner that led to his office and skidded into the wall opposite, bumping his hip and shoulder with bruising force, he saw the outline of a man flailing in the light spilling from a flashlight abandoned on the floor of his office. Another man was already down for the count, seemingly having hit his head on the wall, and was now slumped down on the ground, his sprawled legs tripping the other man up every so often as he tried to devoid himself of… Persian?

The cat was attached to the madly turning and flapping man through the use of its teeth and claws sunk deep into the man's skin and muscles. But the Persian was tiring, having already fought the downed man and having taken quite the beating in the process. Seto could see in the lines of his Pokémon that it was angry, angrier than it should have been if that was possible. Seto didn't understand until he got closer and saw the highlighted mustard eyes, the scruffy moustache, and the twisted expression on his face.

"_Gozaburo!_" Seto wasn't even aware that he'd shouted until he saw his adoptive father jerk towards him and Persian's ears tip in his direction from being pinned back against its head.

With a giant heave borne of a strength Seto didn't know the old man had in him, Gozaburo threw Persian off of him and to the floor several feet away, right in Seto's path.

Seto dropped to his knees before he knew what he was doing and checked on the large cat. It was stunned and disgruntled, but made a _burred_ sound of acknowledgement when Seto rubbed a hand across its bejeweled forehead. Seto sighed in relief.

"Sentiment, Seto? This is a surprising disappointment," Gozaburo commented, a bit breathlessly. Seto raised his eyes to him. "No," he disagreed with himself. "Rather, it is merely a disappointment."

Seto felt his lips pull back from his teeth in a nasty snarl. "This is it, old man."

Gozaburo grinned before turning tail and running down the hall. It took only a moment for Seto, sure of his speed as well as his stamina, to spring after him, having no doubts that he would soon be bringing his father down. However, before he had even made it level with the man Gozaburo had left behind, a heavy mass dropped on him from above, catching him high in the shoulders and causing him to stumble and fall to his knees.

Now he was near enough to the other man to recognize him as the unconscious Frederick Ambley, one of the Blasters that had still been at large, but this meant nothing as the creature that had fallen on him wrapped its short blue tentacles around locks of his hair and the collar of his shirt and coat and sank its sharp, four-part beak into the side of Seto's neck.

Seto screamed and punched back at the Pokémon, trying to dislodge it. His fist came in contact with a hard shell with spikes down the spine of it. It was the goddamn Omastar that the goddamn BPA had given to Gozaburo as a token of their goddamn gratitude!

The Omastar skittered down and sideways across his back, screeching and clucking its beak before driving it between Seto's shoulder blades. Seto only grunted at the pain this time, it being mildly blunted by the material of his clothing. Again Seto took a blind swing at it but didn't connect this time as the Omastar slithered out of the way. Again it bit, this time where the Arbok had already ripped through his jacket causing the slice of the beak to be much less muffled by fabric.

Then the weight of the Omastar was abruptly torn from Seto, and Seto could swear a divot of his flesh went with it as it clattered and thumped through the doorway and across the floor of Seto's office where it was set upon by Kabuto who, emulating the other Pokémon, dropped on it from its perch on Seto's desk and began attacking the fleshy bits of the Omastar not hidden by its shell, using its hooked feet to tear at the exposed, waving blue tentacles. Looking over his shoulder Seto saw his Persian, ears and tail drooped, fur mussed, and whiskers crinkled, standing behind him with its paw, the one that had once been so badly damaged from being caught in Gozaburo's fox trap, still raised from batting the Omastar of its trainer.

Again Seto reached for the cat's forehead before sliding his hand up and rubbing between the Persian's ears. It pushed hard back into his hand and purred for a few moments low in its chest, its eyes closed in equal measures of happiness and weariness.

When Seto pulled his hand back and Persian opened its eyes, he said, "Good job, Persian," and then nodded at the still out-of-it Frederick Ambley. "Keep an eye on him for me?" The Persian bobbed its head and neck once and focused its tired but true gaze on the heap of man in the hall.

Seto stood and saw that, for the time being, his Kabuto had the Omastar backed into a corner with quite a few of its tentacles littering the path they'd taken to get there. Seto switched his gaze to the way Gozaburo had gone, but that didn't matter much; Seto knew where he was going no matter which route he took.

Seto walked into his office, ignoring his Kabuto as it waiting menacing for the Omastar to even _try_ to make a move which it taking off another piece of it, and to the wall with the hidden tunnel entrance concealed behind it. He almost laughed when he understood what he was seeing. Several of the panels were bashed in, as if Gozaburo and Frederick had just been aimlessly hitting them, hoping to come across the one that would open the passageway. Apparently Gozaburo had needed that one pale panel that Seto had had stained a lot more than Seto had thought. If they had been at all systematic about it, they'd have eventually gotten the right one. The desperate randomness of this pattern meant that, while Gozaburo managed to test the panels to both sides of the one he wanted, he failed to press where he needed to.

That, for just a second, made life a little better for him as Seto activated the correct one, swung the unlatched piece of the wall open, and plunged into the tunnels.

* * *

When Seto had told them all to get off the radios almost two hours ago, Mokuba had shrugged, not bothering to log off, tucked the walkie-talkie by his side on his cot where he could easily find and grab it again, and wrapped his arms around his Venonat that he had sitting in his lap.

He'd given the Pokémon with him, all his own, a shrug and let them all go about their business. Pog had bobbed in her fish tank and Lil' Sprout had dug itself back into its customary pot though the pot itself and the stool it sat upon had been moved nearer the cot so as to not present such an appealing target in the center of the room. Plumpness had been exiled to the outdoors, both to stand guard and so as to keep him from reeking up the whole room; the stench was simply too much and Mokuba had been ordered to keep all the glass doors shut and locked along with the wooden doors that led into the house, even if they wouldn't provide much of a barrier. Kid and Treecko had set up their own patrol inside the solarium, marching around the perimeter and having muttered conversations with each other as they went. Finally Nitty had, for all intents and purposes, become Mokuba's security plushy.

Despite having been cheered slightly by Seto's determination in his office a few days ago (_so_ long ago), Mokuba's confidence had once again faltered in himself. Even knowing that he wasn't the only one guarding the estate, knowing that the raid wasn't scheduled for hours by which time Seto would be home with a professional security force in tow, Mokuba still felt insecure and just a bit frightened. Talking with the others stationed around the land had calmed and bolstered him somewhat, but he'd known that it was a mistake to use the radios for anything other than emergency communications, if only because it would keep the others from being distracted from potential threats.

So Mokuba had resigned himself to waiting in relative silence for Seto to return, his arms wrapped tightly around Nitty and his heart stuttering every time he heard a random bit of static over the walkie-talkie or some creak from the house settling down for the night.

He had taken to murmuring encouragingly to Nitty, who'd picked up on his anxiety seemingly the most, and stroking the wide space between its red eyes, below where its wobbly white antennae sprouted from its purple fur, when the walkie-talkie yelped with _loud_ crackles and shouts before shutting up again.

Mokuba had practically flung Nitty off of him in his haste to grab up the radio. He'd glanced at the Venonat apologetically before asking the others, "Did you guys hear that?"

Apparently none of the others had bothered to log off either (which probably was a really bad thing actually), and they'd all heard it and for a few minutes they'd all proposed theories as to what it could have been. Mokuba had been the first to notice that Seto was neither joining in nor telling them to get off the radio waves. When he'd tried calling specifically for his brother he'd gotten no response. Even when the others had gone quiet just to make sure they weren't interfering Seto hadn't replied. Finally Mokuba had given up and tried calling him with his cell phone, but there was no reception, none at all.

That was when he'd warned the others to be on their guard, that Team Rocket may have already made some move they weren't entirely aware of yet. It wasn't too long after that that Yami was attacked outside the wall on the southern slope. Then the power in the Playroom went down. Mokuba had gasped and immediately reached out for Nitty's tiny hand, glad that he'd captured the night vision-bearing Pokemon when he did. Then he'd learned of the power outage at the breeding grounds, heard both Yami and Yugi get cut off, and found that an attack was also being mounted against Prof. Oak at the northern forest border. Tristan was gone.

Mokuba had been the one to tell Joey to abandon his post and go aid Prof. Oak. To compensate for his loss, Mokuba had sent Treecko and Kid to guard the tunnel entrance that was located near the Playroom. He'd locked the door behind them after they'd left, giving Kid instructions that if he and Treecko needed to get in again and it was urgent to just break the door down and not bother with knocking or waiting for Mokuba to open it for them. He'd also told Solomon and Tea about the tunnels and asked that one of them go to the entrance and guard it with the few members of security personnel that were left at the breeding grounds. Tea had actually been the one to go, surprising Mokuba, taking her Vulpix and Seel while leaving her other two Pokémon behind with Solomon to help keep the babies calm.

By this time in the hasty strategizing Mokuba's eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that the bright moon outside was enough for him to make out the features of the lawn and the silhouettes of furniture inside the Playroom. He had been able to make out Plumpness's warning, erratic leaps as well as hear his calls through the glass as a small round object fell slant-wise in front of the glass paneling, having been thrown from an upper window of the mansion near the Playroom.

Mokuba hadn't had any time to say a word as the pokéball exploded to unleash a hulking Venusaur that immediately crashed through the glass of the solarium and whipped out its vines faster than Mokuba would have thought possible from such a hulking brute, and smashed one of them upside Mokuba's head, knocking him out before he even hit the floor, the walkie-talkie still clutched in his hand.

Mokuba had woken up just enough some time later to tell whoever might still be listening on the radios to find Seto. They needed his brother's help. He'd managed to get out, "Seto! Get Seto—" before the Venusaur turned on him again and Mokuba knew the darkness, though not before murmuring his brother's name one last time. They were done without him.

**Thanks for reading! Would you believe me if I said I was going to try to get the next chapter up (late) tomorrow? **


	13. Trump Card

**Ha! I actually got this chapter out today. Who would have thought?**

Seto didn't know who was surprised more when he came out of the tunnel, himself or Mokuba's Treecko and Machoke. He was already disoriented enough, the lights in the tunnel having been out and his having to make his way by touch. The closet the tunnel entrance was hidden in was much lighter by comparison and that was all that enabled Seto to duck out of the way as Mokuba's Machoke took a swing at his head. The Treecko was right behind him, its body turned and tail raised to smack the intruder.

"Enough," he hissed at the Pokémon. The both stilled.

"_Tree?_" the Treecko quietly lilted in confusion.

"Hush," was Seto's response. He hoisted himself from the trapdoor, carefully closing it behind him so that it made no noise. "Is Mokuba still in the Playroom?" he whispered to them, nearly mouthing it, unsure if there were any enemies around that could hear them.

Treecko nodded as Machoke began babbling. Seto didn't understand a word, but the tone was perfectly clear: something had gone wrong, something was _still_ wrong.

Seto help up a hand to cut the Machoke off. "Come with me," he commanded under his breath.

He opened the door to the hallway a crack and peeked out. Nothing. Opening the door wider he slipped through and held it so that Treecko and Machoke could creep through as well before securing it behind them.

Taking one of his last two filled pokéballs from his ruined, torn, bloody jacket and checking the halls one last time to be sure of their emptiness, Seto called out his Cloyster. Not that he didn't trust his brother's Pokémon but they were both rather scrawny, much like Mokuba himself, and didn't have any sort of experience when it came to a full-on raging battle. He needed someone at his back that he could count on as well as to protect not only his hide but that of Machoke's and Treecko's as well.

With a brisk movement of his hand he gave them the silent command to move forward, which they did quickly and with relatively little sound. At every corner they came to Seto would peek around and then send Cloyster out first. When nothing attacked the Pokémon, then Seto and the others would follow. It wasn't long before they reached the hallway that the Playroom was located off of and heard a grinding _crunch_ come from behind the locked doors followed by a yell from what could only be one of Mokuba's Pokémon, his Gloom.

Everyone in Seto's little group forgot caution and took off for the Playroom's doors. Machoke reached them first and raised his foot to kick them down, but when it connected, the wood cracked, but the doors didn't fall open. Machoke looked more surprised than any of them and tried again, and again. They heard another yell but the doors refused to budge.

"Machoke, move," Seto finally ordered. He waved his Cloyster into place. "Bash them down!" Seto backed up and took Mokuba's Pokémon with him, giving his Cloyster room to do its job.

It took Cloyster two tries. The first try effective broke the lock of the doors and pushed them in several inches. As Cloyster was backing up for the second, something else pushed them back into place. Something was holding them up from the inside. When Closter rammed the doors again he kept pushing, shoving whatever was on the other side back until it broke through.

The moment there was enough space to move through, Mokuba's Treecko ran for it ducking under the Cloyster and through the gap, Machoke close behind. Seto waited until the doors clattered to the floor and Cloyster was off after whatever had been attempting to impede it.

The solarium was trashed. Glass was everywhere, plant pots were smashed on the floor, the fish tank was shattered, its water pooled on the floor all around it. But more striking than all of that was what was going on outside: the expanse of land behind the Kaiba mansion was burning, walls of flame rising from the grass. Silhouetted against the firelight was the fight between Seto's Cloyster and a lumbering Venusaur. The two giants were making even more of a mess of the already trashed solarium. Mokuba's Gloom, Venonat, and Machoke were also on the offensive, doing whatever they could to force the Venusaur out of the hole it had made through the wall. His Poliwag and Bellsprout were nowhere in sight.

Mokuba himself was collapsed on his cot that was listing to one side, his head hanging over the side. His Treecko was shaking his arm, and he was trying to get up, but he wasn't making much of a go of it.

"Mokuba!" Seto shouted, leaping over a stool missing three of its legs to kneel in a puddle of red-tinted water beside his baby brother. "Mokuba."

He grabbed his brother's shoulders and turned his brother toward. Blood coated one side of his face, having bled from cuts and scratches both below and above his eye, the skin over his cheekbone and under his eyebrow having been shredded.

His eyes fluttered a little and tried to focus on Seto's face. The one on the side of his face that had been damaged barely opened but the other flew wide. "Seto…?"

"What happened, Mokuba?"

Mokuba groaned and tried to sit up, ending up falling back on his elbows. "Ugh. The Venusaur burst through the glass. It vine-whipped me upside the face." Mokuba suddenly jerked and grabbed for Seto. "I think I saw Gozaburo, Seto. He came through here, he got on a Rapidash. I think he was heading for the breeding grounds."

Seto nodded before standing and pulling Mokuba with him. Their Pokémon had driven the Venusaur out to the yard, trapping it between them and the flames, btu that didn't mean Mokuba wasn't still in danger here.

"Come on. Get your Venonat to follow us."

Mokuba blinked and took a few seconds to process that, making Seto realize that his own head wound was slight in comparison to what Mokuba might be experiencing. Seto wasn't even bleeding.

"Nitty," Mokuba called as Seto briskly led him from the room.

"Mokuba, go to the tunnels and have your Venonat guide you to my office. Stay there with Persian." Seto turned back to the Playroom just as Nitty hopped its way through the doorframe.

"Wait! You're not coming? You can use the tunnels."

Seto shook his head. "That will take too long." The twists, turns, and double-backs of the tunnel system would triple his time even if he didn't have to contend with the lack of light. He started running back to the Playroom.

"Seto!"

"I have to protect the Pokémon!" Seto called back over his shoulder as he sprinted for the hole made by the Venusaur.

Avoiding the fight, Seto ran for the lake, dodging around lines of fire that must have been set by the Rapidash that Mokuba said he had seen, taking the only path that Seto could even feasibly begin to navigate. It wasn't too long before Seto was running in the shallows of the lake, safe enough from the blazes for now. It almost seemed too easy to have made it so quickly through the maze of fire, and usually when it seems too easy, that's because it is too easy.

He made it to the stubby point where Wheeler had originally been stationed, so near another tunnel hatch that he'd already felt safe despite that not even being his destination. Seto didn't even see the Grimer that caught him around the ankles and sent him sprawling facedown into the "real," comparatively benign mud of the lakeshore. He scrambled to get his feet loose from the Pokémon, kicking and squirming to the best of his ability. Seto had never been more grateful that he wore boots instead of regular shoes. They were the only thing that protected him from the toxic touch of the polluting Pokémon.

He'd just broken free from the grumbling, gurgling mass of sludge when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw another form approaching, a Muk. Seto _might_ be able to dodge them both if he took to the water, but then he risked contaminating the lake and harming all of the Pokémon in it should they come after him. He was on his hands and knees, trying to decide what to do when the Muk reached him and glided past, heading for the Grimer. Seto almost collapsed with relief, realizing that the Muk was one from the breeding grounds come to help him… For it to be out this far, the "nest," as it were, of Grimers and Muks that guarded the moat of the breeding grounds must have been disturbed. Good news for Seto at the moment, but bad news in every other way.

Seto lurched to his feet, moved away from the dueling muddy duo, and realized that he'd no longer be able to keep to the shallows. To do so would be to take the chance of being captured by another of the well camouflaged Pokémon. He'd either have to swim, which would take too long, or move closer to the land and the flames. He couldn't take the tunnel, again because it would also take too long, but also because that must have been the reason for the Grimer to be stationed at this very spot, waiting for him to either come from or go to the well-hidden trapdoor. Whenever Seto has smelled that rancid scent when he came out to swim in the lake, it must have been _this_ one doing reconnaissance, sent by Team Rocket to spy on him and the security as it blended in with the rest of its kind working for KEBG.

Seto left the moist banks of the lake and once again took off for the breeding grounds, getting as close to the flames as he dared, deciding that a little risk _here_ was worth the time it would save him as well as remove him from the risk down _there_. How wrong he was.

Seto was blind-sided by Gozaburo's Rapidash as it charged him, having been hidden entirely by the flames that it had spurred. It rammed into him with its chest, sending Seto tumbling down the shoreline and into the lake water. Mud got in his eyes and his vision was garbled beneath the water. All he could see above him was that the world was burning at the same time that Seto was sinking.

He inhaled a lungful of water, choked, but stayed under and kicked himself deeper out into the water rather than toward land. That Rapidash would burn or trample him the moment he left the lake, he knew it. He finally broke the surface several feet away from the fiery, horned horse. But that didn't mean the Pokémon had forgotten about him. It neighed and screamed fiercely, charging towards the water in a direct line for him and only to turn aside at the last moment before its hooves hit the rippling lake and begin again. This Pokémon of Gozaburo's was starved too, with scars crisscrossing over its hide, like the Venusaur from before had been allowed to practice its vine-whip on it at leisure. The flames of its mane and tail were out-of-control, just like its rolling, spite-filled eyes. If Seto wasn't so threatened by it he might feel sorry for the beast after what it had undoubtedly gone through.

Seto began swimming east to the breeding grounds, away from land, unwilling to go up against the large, angry Rapidash that he was well aware he stood no chance. If things had gone as he'd planned he would have swum to the moat, taken his chances of finding anymore rogue Muks or Grimers and stuck to the forested side of the inlet stream, and then raced to breeding grounds entrance, hoping against hope that the Rapidash wouldn't jump the moat and risk getting any part of it wet.

That wasn't how things went, though, because Seto caught sight of a pokéball bobbing free halfway between himself and the Rapidash. It was Eevee's. The Rapidash could see it too. It was now pawing at the water, careful to only allow the tip of its one hoof to touch the water, keeping its flaming fetlock well clear. It was trying to pull the pokéball closer to it. The intent in its eyes was clear; the moment it brought the pokéball up on land with itself, it would crush it, stamping it to oblivion, along with Seto's Eevee within it.

For a minute, Seto considered leaving Eevee to her fate. This little project would distract the Rapidash for just long enough that Seto might get far enough ahead that he'd be able to return to land and reach the breeding grounds faster. Her sacrifice could be what saved the baby Pokémon from becoming abused tools like those they'd gone up against in their journey here for Team Rocket to use to bring even more innocent Pokémon to their knees. One loss for the sake of the many.

…

Gathering his feet under him on the moss-slickened rocks, Seto sloshed forward toward her pokéball. He couldn't let her go, not this way to this deranged creature. Even as he'd considered leaving her behind, images of her standing on his chest after knocking him out of the path of the Aerodactyl's jaws, her leaping from his shoulder to the Beedrill's face and giving him time to call out his Gyarados, her slinking down the stairs headfirst for fun when she thought he wasn't around to see her being so childish, her always just looking so _happy_ when he gave her even a _second_ of his attention flashed in front of his eyes. He hadn't even asked her and she'd backed him up. Who would when she was gone and he was alone?

He'd already been repaying her sweetness and loyalty with rejection and a blind eye. Seto wasn't going to leave her now.

The wave he created trying to get to it pushed the pokéball closer to the Rapidash. He dove for it just as the Rapidash decided it didn't mind the water any move and made its move as well. The Pokémon's horn cut along Seto's face as he wrapped his fingers around Eevee's pokéball, its mane coming so close to his face that it evaporated all the moisture from it and began to make his skin painfully hot and tight.

Seto swerved to his left and spun, hoping to be able to make it back to the deeper water before the Rapidash closed in on him, but the Rapidash itself was what cut him off from that route. So Seto took off down the bank, hoping to find some other opportunity to fling himself back into the cool waves of the water. The Rapidash ran along right beside him, its fetlocks no longer giving any indication of once having been wrapped with fire.

Suddenly, the Rapidash veered onto land, using its body to try to push Seto into the flames on his other side. It didn't work. Then, it dropped back and the next thing that Seto knew was an exploding pain just over his right ear.

He felt himself tumble to the ground and his hand open, tossing Eevee's pokéball is some unknown direction before he blacked out in the mud.

* * *

It wasn't too long before he woke up, but it felt like eternity for Seto. He was face down in the mud when he woke up, mud once again in his eyes, his whole body aching, with an insistent poke to what was exposed of his cheek that returned every few seconds. With a groan he pushed himself slightly up, not quite able to get his arms or legs under him. His hair trailed lake water across his face from being in the water only a few inches in front of his face. He'd come so close to drowning.

Turning his head, Seto saw his Eevee, the pokéball that she'd been in lay open several feet away at the foot of a fairly tall boulder pile. Her big, brown eyes were worried and a little bit of blood on one paw from where she'd been pressing against the tear on his face that the Rapidash had given him. Looking around, Seto saw the Rapidash with its back half in the water, the rest of it out, and absolutely no fire coursing along its body. It didn't even look like it was breathing.

But that could have just been from his currently bad vision. With the grit still in his eyes Seto was barely even able to see the swell in the water that signified the presence of the lake's Dragonair. It rose gracefully up from the water, giving Seto the best view of it that he'd ever had so far in the light of the dwindling fires. It gazed down on Seto with its liquid, dark eyes.

"Please," Seto whispered to the Dragonair. "Help me."

Seto didn't know what he expected the Dragonair to do. What could it do? Calm Gozaburo down? Oddly enough, Seto didn't think that would be all that helpful in this particular situation. Even he was unable to feel the compulsive urge to relax, though that may have been a choice on the Dragonair's part.

The Dragonair continued starring down at him as if it were waiting for something, a signal. Hadn't it already received some sort of signal? It was here, wasn't it? Though he'd figured that it had free run of the lake, Seto had only known it to leave the lake minor one other time, five years ago on the day that Seto found Meowth. What had it been doing here then and what was it doing here now?

The Dragonair turned its gaze to look out over the burning estate lands. As Seto watched, the ball located under the Pokémon's chin and the ones on its tail beneath the water began to glow. The Dragonair pointed its horn to the sky and rain clouds started to form. Within a few minutes all the fires had been doused in the gentle storm that the legendary Pokémon had called up. Seto was sure he'd ever felt such awe in his life. The Dragonair returned its attention to the dirty, bloodied, soaked human still lying on his stomach before it and then began to glide away.

"Please," Seto called after it left him. "I need you. The baby Pokémon need you."

The Dragonair did not stop until it came abreast with the boulders that Eevee's pokéball had burst under. Eevee herself had at some point left Seto's side and was now perched on the highest point offered to her. Even though she was just as wet as he was, her fur having lost its volume and clinging to her miniature form, giving her the appearance of a half-drowned cat, Seto thought she looked nobler now than she ever had.

The Dragonair lowered its head and Eevee raised hers. Just as they were about to touch, Eevee raised her paw, the one not still stained with Seto's blood, and bapped the Dragonair on the nose. For a moment nothing happened, and then, in a flash a white light, the Dragonair disappeared.

For several long seconds Seto had no idea what had happened. Even when he saw Eevee's open pokéball now closed and its small round light flashing red as it rocked about, Seto still wasn't sure what had gone on. It made no sense to him.

Eevee, silly, adorable Eevee, had caught one of, if not the, strongest Pokémon on the estate… just by batting it on the nose.

Seto forced his muscles to get him into a standing position. From there he slowly walked over to the pokéball that had now gone quiet, bent over, and, with an effort, straightened with it in his hand. He was holding the Dragonair.

"Eevee," he murmured.

He received a replying '_Eeee_' from around his feet. Eevee had come down from the boulders and was now standing by his side, a slight wag in her tail and her ears drooped but attentive like she didn't know what he would think of her after what she'd done.

Dropping, nearly falling, to his knees Seto dropped the pokéball and pulled his Eevee into his arms. After a confused moment she let out a delighted squeal and pressed back, burying her face against his ruined clothes and wagging her fox-like tail with gusto. Seto wondered if it was a known fact that Eevee's could purr. Probably. He just hadn't taken the time to notice or care.

Seto held onto her even as she became enveloped by white light, held onto her as her shape shifted and evolved, and continued holding onto her form for a short time after the transformation was complete. When he next released her, it wasn't an Eevee he set down, but a sleek and beautiful Umbreon.

Her bright red eyes stared at him, waiting for his reaction while her yellow circle markings glowed in the night. He reached out and rubbed one of her velvety, stream-lined, pitch-black ears as he said to her, "Good girl, Umbreon." She purred again, a slightly different sound, deeper, a bit burlier, but it was still a lovely sound to Seto's ears.

He had to admit that he hoped the huskier growl meant a stronger Pokémon, because, with all that drama out of the way, he, his new Dragonair, and his new Umbreon were off to face Gozaburo.

* * *

Seto immediately summoned the Dragonair back out of the pokéball.

"Get us over to the breeding grounds without anything attacking us," he gave his first order to his new Pokémon.

The Dragonair nodded but seemed to have a different idea than what Seto had of him merely guarding them as they made their way to the breeding grounds. It nudged at Seto's legs until he was unenthusiastically obliged to throw one over to straddle the Dragonair. Umbreon leaped up to sit behind Seto as the giant blue Pokémon beneath him rose from the ground and took flight.

Seto got a good view of the damage during the short flight it took to get to the KEBG entrance. The grass was completely charred no matter which direction he looked, and several of the trees looked devastated as well. Dugtrios were popping up all over having sensed that the source of the heat they'd felt above them was gone. Bird-type Pokémon were scattering in every direction around the Dragonair, incapable of understanding what had just happened to their homes.

As they flew Seto let out a sharp whistle that rose at the end that carried all the way back to the mansion where his Fearow heard him and rose through the ruined-beyond-repair skylight and gave back a cry that sank at the end. He and the others were okay.

Seto sighed and reached behind him to rub Umbreon's shoulder blades.

When they landed Seto had to recall Dragonair to the pokéball, the halls of the breeding grounds being too tight for the Pokémon.

He and Umbreon raced into the building. The back-up power was still just barely on in the main above-ground area and Umbreon's glowing markings proved extremely useful in helping them find their way to the inner sanctum where the heavily guarded elevator and stairs were located. They weren't heavily guarded now. Seto had no idea where the personnel had gotten to.

Knowing the elevator wouldn't have enough juice to get them anywhere, Seto immediately led the way to the stairs. He and Umbreon went down several flights, meeting no one in the process. Seto immediately took them to the floor that had been chosen to house all the babies during the raid. They burst out of the stairwell and kept sprinting through the spirally hallways to the one that led in and out of the main area.

Seto and Umbreon came within sight of doors before anything got in their way. Gozaburo stepped out of the shadows just next to the door as they took their first strides down this one last hallway. Beyond him, the doors were shut tight and hopefully barred from the inside, but Seto could still make out the sounds of what sounded like a lullaby being sung.

"Son," Gozaburo greeted as if they hadn't just seen each other. The memory of his throwing Persian off floored Seto. "Took you a while, didn't it."

"I ran into some of those wretches you call Pokémon," Seto spat. Umbreon joined him.

"Ah, yes. Well, now that they're out of the way, what do you say we have a little chat about this secret you've been keeping, hm?" The pleasantness of Gozaburo's words and voice were counteracted by the hate-filled look in his eyes as he glanced around this part of the breeding grounds, indicating what the "secret" was.

"I say no," Seto replied, taking a bold step forward, Umbreon matching it. "You have no leverage, Gozaburo. There's no reason I should waste one more _millisecond_ talking with you when I can call up the BPA and have your ass thrown in jail for the rest of your life plus and little extra. If you'd have any Pokémon left you'd have thrown them at me in the stairs or in the hallways leadings here. You have no trump card, Gozaburo. _I_ do. I have a Dragonair, damnit! You have nothing. You are nothing." It felt so good to say the words.

A short bit of silence followed his speech that Gozaburo broke with, "You may think that, Seto, but I believe I have something, a trump card, as you say, even better than your Dragonair and… whatever that useless pipsqueak beside you is. Didn't I teach you better than to fraternize with such weak Pokémon?"

Umbreon growled at him, baring two rows a sharp, razor-like teeth, more than she'd had as an Eevee, as a large orb floated from the shadows behind Gozaburo. Another Electrode, or maybe the same that had gone off earlier tonight.

The look in Gozaburo's eyes as the Electrode floated to the middle of the hall had Seto's stomach churning.

"Well, boy? As it happens I do hav one last Pokémon with me. Now, we know what happens when an explosion goes off in the middle of the Kaiba Corporation building. How about we see how the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds holds up in comparison, eh? Try keeping it a secret _then._"

**Thanks for reading! So I managed two chapters in two days. Can I manage a third for tomorrow, the last chapter?**

**Also, the blog post for this chapter is going to be combined with the next one, so it won't be up just yet. Following that, I'm going to be putting up a post that details the process that I went through to write this fic, including the original outline and a few other Easter eggs. **


	14. Arrest and Reunion

**This fic has been going on for so long, but it feels like it took such a short time (maybe that has something to do with how quickly these last chapters got out).**

Seto had no choice. "What _exactly_ did you want to talk about," he gritted out.

The grin, if you could call it that, was like a gash across Gozaburo's face. He had real ones in a few places, as well as several scorched areas, showing that his own journey here had been less than easy. Not near as difficult as Seto's, but still as if it had taken quite a bit of effort. Seto hoped something was permanent, scarring or a limp or something.

Of course, if Gozaburo went through with his threat, nothing would be permanent for either of them for long.

"I want to know why you would put so much effort into turning my lovely gym into _this_," Gozaburo said after a long moment.

"_This _is my way of trying to make up for what you've done, old man," Seto answered quietly, keeping a careful eye on the bobbing potential bomb. Not that it would do any good to know when the Pokémon would go off. "All the Pokémon you've captured or stolen and then ruined, someone needs to be around to make sure that not all the Pokémon in the world end up like that at your ha—"

"Ruined them!" Gozaburo roared. "I made them better! I brought out their strengths!"

"You wrecked them," Seto retorted. "You tortured them until they'd do anything you wanted them to. They went insane. You built them in your image, you son-of-a—"

"What about you, Seto," Gozaburo cut him off again. "If it weren't for me you never would have made it as far as you have! Those Pokémon aren't the only ones built in my image. I've made you what you are!"

"Do you think I'm supposed to be grateful?" Seto raged. "It's thanks to you that…" Seto couldn't even say it, just gestured pathetically at the Umbreon standing steadfast at his side.

"What is this, Seto? What even is this?" Gozaburo scoffed. "You were supposed to be stronger, able to overcome all that emotional claptrap. First that cat and now this weak creature. It's no wonder things have gone so smoothly."

"Smoothly?" It was Seto's turn to sneer. "Have you even looked at yourself? All the Pokémon you've thrown at me are defeated. The mansion is safe, my brother is safe, my Pokémon are safe. I'm _am_ strong and I am powerful and it has nothing to do with you and all to do with them!" This time he was confident as he threw out an arm to indicate Umbreon. "You're the one here who is weak. Not me, and not her."

Gozaburo's face was red and a vein was pulsing on his forehead. It looked like he was the one about to go off. Instead, after what seemed like several minutes, he calmed slightly, a twitch under his moustache continuing to show his outrage. "Safe, you said. _She_," now Gozaburo indicated Seto's Umbreon, "is in no way safe. And neither are you. I didn't think I'd need to remind you of those poor little ones behind the doors behind me, but I guess I must. How can you say anything about safety, boy?"

Seto didn't respond. He couldn't. Until he did. "I may not be safer, but I'm still stronger than you."

Gozaburo's eyes flared. "Electrode, now!"

"No!"

…

The Electrode didn't go off. Seto's heart was ratcheting in his chest as he waited for his whole world to explode. But it didn't.

It started melting, a few red and white drips at first that then began pouring off and melding into a pink blob with two little black dots for eyes and a black line for its mouth.

Seto could hardly believe his eyes. A… Ditto?

There was no Electrode. It had been a Ditto all along. Going from the look on Gozaburo's face, he had been just as unaware that the Pokémon was not a real Electrode.

The doors opened behind Gozaburo and Duke Devlin stepped out of them, quietly closing them behind him. "Nice job, Doppelganger," he said to the wobbling pink globule before turning to look between Seto and Gozaburo. His green gaze finally settled on Seto, who was finding himself leaning against a nearby way in order to keep himself from falling to his knees in shock and relief.

"Devlin," Gozaburo hissed. "What—"

"Gozaburo Kaiba, you are under arrest."

* * *

Several hours later, Seto was escorted by several BPA agents that included Duke Devlin across the burnt lawn of the estate back to the mansion. Other agents were stationed around the building, including the gap in the wall where the Venusaur had busted through. Even more people were in the halls, ducking in and out of rooms with a sense of urgency that Seto didn't think was required so many hours after the raid went down.

They found Mokuba, Yugi, and the others in the foyer with their Pokémon and more people from the Bureau. A few of the guys looked bloodied, but none too badly. Yami was clutching his arm to him at an angle while a paramedic talked to him and Yugi watched over them both anxiously, their Pidgey shaking but fine on his lap. Wheeler must have fallen down at some point because the knees of his jeans were torn open and red-stained, with his hands awkwardly held out in front of him, as if the palms had gotten scraped pretty badly, too. Beside him was the elusive Tristan whose absence had been explained to Seto during the hours he'd been detained and briefed at the breeding grounds.

Mokuba was sitting on the loveseat near where Seto had hidden with Eevee from the Aerodactyl, sharing it with Prof. Oak who was having his arm attended by one of the medical personnel the BPA had brought with them, namely a nurse who had been known far and wide as being the best of the best in both human and Pokémon dealings before she joined the Bureau. Nurse Joy was at this moment applying a salve to Prof. Oak's arm where it looked like something venomous had bitten him.

"Seto!" Mokuba called upon seeing him. Butterfly bandages covered the side of his face that had been coated with blood when Seto had seen him earlier. He squirmed his way off of the loveseat, leaving his Venonat in his place and stepping over his Treecko and Machoke who'd been gathered around his legs. Once he'd extricated himself he ran for his brother, ignoring the blood, mud, and whatever else Seto had spattered on him and wrapping his arms around his waist. When he pulled away his first comment was, "Man, you look terrible."

"It doesn't look like I'm the only one. What got their fangs in Oak?" Seto asked. He had to lean back when his little brother laughed and snorted loudly before tightly covering his mouth and nose with both hands.

"U-um." Mokuba had to clear his throat several times before he could go on. "That happened after everything else. Nitty was feeling a bit overprotective and I guess Professor Oak got too close to me, or something, so Nitty bit him." Even now when they looked, Prof. Oak and the Venonat were giving each other wary looks as they sat next to one another.

Seto chuckled under his breath for a second before, one-by-one, he was greeted by his Pokémon. The first to approach him was one he wasn't expecting at all. His Gengar pulled itself out of Mokuba's shadow and came to hover at eye-level.

"Oh, yeah," Mokuba said. "A few agents came to tell us they found Bandit Keith in the parking garage of KC and to pick up Frederick. This guy must have hitched a ride and popped out when they parked, scaring them half-to-death." Gengar's customary malicious grin widened. "He's been hanging out with me since then." Mokuba didn't sound like that had been a pleasurable experience.

Seto and his Gengar regarded each other for a second. Seto nodded, Gengar nodded back, and then Seto jerked his head toward his shadow and the Gengar immediately dove in, stretched the shadow to fit, and settled down in contentment. Mokuba's had been too small for its liking and it would have preferred his trainer's anyway.

Gyarados was next, though not in the form Seto had left him in. Mokuba held out a pokéball. "Found a bunch of these in the Playroom, outside your office, and down here. I figured they were all yours. We had to call your Gyarados back because he was _really_ pissed off to be seeing a bunch of strangers in the house and I think he was worried about you too. Wouldn't listen to anyone. He might have torn the house apart looking for you."

Seto took the pokéball and silently promised the Pokémon inside that he would greet and thank him properly later.

Cloyster was next, drifting over from where it had been hanging over Solomon Moto's shoulder as he polished the spiraling horn that protruded from his Rhydon's face. Seto gave it a brief pat on its shell before recalling it to the pokéball that Mokuba held out.

Nidorino followed. He was missing one of his distinctive fangs and his ears had a series of cuts and nicks. A slight limp also accompanied the Pokémon, stemming from a puncture wound on its left rear leg. When Seto kneeled down to check him over, he heard a sweet voice tell him, "Your Nidorino will be okay. An Arbok got a fang in him, but we were able to treat him soon enough that the poison had no effect. His tooth may or may not grow back at this point, but the limp should go away soon." Seto looked up and saw Nurse Joy standing next to his brother, smiling benevolently down at him. "How about we take a look at you, Mr. Kaiba? From the little I've heard of your whole adventure, it sounds like you could use at least a little TLC."

Seto's eyes narrowed at her and he stood up to his full height. "I need to check on my other Pokémon first."

Nurse Joy nodded, her kind expression still in place. "Let me know when you're done. I can look over you wounds and tell you how to take care of your Pokémon as we go, okay?" She moved away, heading to where Yami seemed to be arguing with the paramedic over his arm, which really was twisted the wrong way around. Nurse Joy began talking to him, sweetening him up and getting him to release him arm into the care of the paramedic, who, at a signal from the nurse, whipped it up and back into the socket before Yami could protest. He let out a yelp that the Pidgey echoed and gathered the whole room's attention. He blushed and looked down at his fixed arm.

Seto looked away from him and down at his feet when he felt Nidorino come to lean against his leg and let out a deep sigh before seeming to fall asleep while braced against him. A shadow fell over him as well as Seto, Mokuba, and a great deal of the foyer as Seto's Fearow landed on the edge of the skylight.

Seto felt an odd jerk in his chest upon seeing the bird-type Pokemon. Fearow was not only his first Pokémon but the one he'd used to confront Gozaburo with the first time. Of all his Pokémon, Fearow was the one he'd probably had the best relationship with and the greatest emotional tie to up until last night. The only one. It was weird not to have made as much use of him as he had last time, not to give Fearow the chance to get his own revenge on Gozaburo and the Blasters for what they'd done to him. But that was how it had gone…

Seto gave a low, tripping whistle that they hadn't assigned a meaning to yet. Some of the other Pokémon perked their ears but Mokuba was the only person who heard him. The Fearow cocked its head to the side before giving its own nearly chirpy response. Seto gave a small smile.

He turned back to Mokuba. "Where are Persian and Kabuto?"

Mokuba smirked. "What Kabuto?"

Seto's eyebrows lowered in confusion until he saw the gangly Kabutops making its way over to him. Seto rather doubted he would be able to use this obviously threatening predator as a desk ornament anymore. Then again, he doubted anyone would dare again disagree with him at the office. He'd have to think it over.

"It's been taking care of Persian up until just a little while ago," Mokuba told him as the Kabutops approached.

"Is that so," Seto commented, reaching out a hand to lay the palm on the natural armor plate of its head. Its sharp sickles cut through the air as it scissored them, seemingly in happiness and/or celebration. Its eyes were squeezed shut like it was happy, at least.

"Yep. Persian won't come out of your office, and it threw a fit when they took Frederick away. Your Kabuto had to calm it down and it was during their fight that it evolved."

Seto couldn't help but be just a little bit amused by that. He took another of the pokéballs that Mokuba offered him and housed his new Kabutops in it.

"I'm going to go check on Persian and then I'll be back," he said and started moving for the stairs, calling Nidorino into the last pokéball Mokuba offered first.

"Wait!" Mokuba called after him. "Where's Eevee?"

Seto smirked and used Mokuba's own words on him. "What Eevee?"

Mokuba's eyes nearly popped out of his skull and then he started looking around. He finally spotted Umbreon on the other side of the room, sniffing at Tea's shy Wigglytuff, backing it into a corner as it tried to escape her twitchy nose.

"An Umbreon?" Mokuba questioned in wonder.

"Her idea, not mine," Seto felt compelled to say.

"Well what would you have wanted her to be?" Mokuba asked, a bit harshly.

Seto shrugged. "I don't know. This is good. This is very good."

Mokuba looked his brother in the eye for several long moments and Seto almost swore a look of _pride_ came into his brother's gaze. _He_ was proud of his older brother. Shouldn't that be the other way around?

Umbreon must have heard them talking about her, even from across the room, and came speeding over, around, and between objects until she was sitting primly in front of them. In another few seconds she just wasn't able to contain herself and began bouncing in place with her own excitement. Seto left Mokuba laughing over her antics as he made his way to the much quieter upstairs of the mansion.

The first thing that Seto saw when he entered his office was that the tentacles were still scattered about from where his Kabuto had torn then from the Omastar. He'd be needing to hire a cleaning service after tonight to help the regulars get this place back in shape. Some contractors too, probably.

Persian was a scruffy heap in one corner that uttered a mournful mew when Seto's eyes alighted on it. Seto went to it, kneeling down beside it, and it immediately rubbed its head against Seto's outstretched hand.

"I hear you guarded Ambley 'til the end, Persian," he murmured to it. "Very admirable, but he's someone else's problem now. Your job's done." He rubbed his thumb over its red jewel and saw the tension and worry seep out of the cat's body at his words.

Looking out the window Seto saw that Fearow was in his usual perch in the unharmed tree, the front yard having escaped the fire, and he knew his Gengar was still in his shadow. Seto pulled himself to sit in his office chair, letting Persian rest his head on his knee as they both looked out the window. Gengar eventually appeared and hung behind Seto's back, likewise looking outside. Fearow also looked, all four of them watching as the sun came up and brought light back to the world.

These three Pokémon were the ones that had firsthand experience of what it was like being under the control of Gozaburo. They'd also been the ones who'd experienced Seto when _he_ as under Gozaburo's control which was nearly as bad at certain times. It was only fitting that he spend a moment of time with them, taking the time to realize and appreciate what this new day really meant for not only themselves, but also for everyone who had or would have been touched by Gozaburo's influence.

It was shaping up to be a good day.

**Thanks for reading! Okay, I lied, there's going to be one more chapter. Look for it either tonight or tomorrow.**


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue.**

Seto took the time to shower the worst of the grime and gore off of him (getting an eyeful of the bruises, scrapes, and slashes that patterned his body nearly from head to toe) and put on new clothes before he returned downstairs. With all of his pokéballs plus a one more than before, Seto made his way back to his brother and the rest of the circus he had camped out in his foyer.

Nurse Joy, proving herself to be more than just a pretty face, immediately confronted him and dragged him to sit in the vacated loveseat where she unapologetically injected him with a syringe full of rabies vaccine and followed that up with a tetanus booster. She followed up her two-pronged attack with several sterile cloths that were doused in stinging antiseptic which she swabbed all over his skin, everywhere that had even the tiniest of cuts. Seto bore it all without a complaint, knowing it was all necessary to prevent an infection. And Wheeler managed to provide a show when the paramedic that had been treating Yami earlier applied the same treatment to his tattered knees and palms, screeching and trying to pull away every time, his eyes streaming tears at even the slightest touch.

Persian had opted to stay in Seto's office for a time, but the cat came down when Seto was nearly done. Seto had to coax him, but eventually Persian leapt up onto the loveseat when Seto had stood up and allowed Nurse Joy to begin checking him out for anything more serious than the bumps and cuts that everyone seemed to be suffering from.

Everyone else was settled of in the parlor next to the foyer by this time. Seto joined Mokuba who was sitting on a large couch on the outer edge of where the group had congregated. Apparently it was story time with Duke Devlin taking notes down of what everyone said, a prologue of sorts to go along with the statements that everyone would be making later when they'd gotten a chance to clean up and rest.

Seto decided he wanted to hold off telling his story until the last, needing time to get everything settled in his mind so that he didn't have some sort of… emotional outburst, or whatever in the middle of it. Everything was still so raw and roiling. Unfortunately his was the story that everyone seemed to want to hear the most (with the exception of Wheeler who'd caught Kaiba sneering at him while he was having his wounds looked at). Finally they accepted that he wasn't about to budge on this and went on to lay out their own tales.

Yami and Yugi went first for the sake of chronology. They'd been the ones first attacked. Yami, with his and Yugi's Sandshrew, Kadabra, and Ninetales backing him up, had been attacked by four or five Team Rocket members. They'd almost managed to overwhelm him except their Kadabra, after having a tantrum in the middle of everything, finally having gotten its attitude in check and sent over half the attacking Pokémon flying with its telekinesis. Yugi had been ambushed by Pokémon without any trainers guiding them, led by the Rapidash that had given Seto so much trouble. He'd also almost lost with only two combat-ready Pokémon on hand, a Golduck and Quilava, the Pidgey being too young to put in that sort of situation, but the Rapidash had suddenly been called away and Yugi and his Pokémon had pulled through and been ready when the next wave of Pokémon came. Yami had likewise been ready, but had been taken off guard when one of the Blaster's Caterpie had evolved into a Metapod in the middle of a battle, blinding him, and giving a Wartortle enough time to tackle him, knocking him to the ground and his arm out of socket.

Prof. Oak and Joey went next. Several Team Rocket lackeys had come at Prof. Oak from the woods about the time Yami and Yugi had been engaged. He'd been able to hold up his own until he hadn't. Things had been going badly for him when Joey finally burst onto the scene. Between the two of them, their Pokémon had driven the intruders off, but then the real fight had begun between Joey's Arcanine and Charmeleon. They'd almost ripped each other to shreds before his Mankey had gone ballistic and beaten the two of them into submission. Joey had gotten his "injuries" when his fat Golbat had flown full-force into the back of his head while he'd been trying to separate his other Pokémon. His Rattata had run away for a while, too, and he'd just barely been able to find it again using Arcanine's nose (once his Charmeleon was put back in its pokéball of course).

Seto could barely stop himself from face-palming all during Wheeler's story. It was _painful_ to hear.

During Tea's and Solomon's story, which had a _lot_ of sidetracks about the heroics of this Pokémon or the cuteness of that one, Persian slunk its way over from having escaped the care of Nurse Joy and tentatively crawled partially onto Seto's lap, flopping down to relax on him once he was sure Seto wouldn't push him off.

He ran his hands carefully over his Persian's spine and felt a few lumps, but the cat didn't seem to mind, which was just the guarantee of good health that Seto needed. Nurse Joy had assured Seto that all of his Pokémon were fine and had told him how to handle each one so that they wouldn't need any more visits from medical professionals for a while.

"Seto," Mokuba whispered.

"Hmm?" Seto never knew Persian's fur was so soft.

"You're petting Persian. Did you know that?" Mokuba's tone was of disbelief.

"Yeah, I know that," Seto answered.

Umbreon, having been cuddled by Mokuba's feet as it waited for Seto, must have caught sight of how much attention and affection Persian was getting and now decided to grab some of it for herself. Leaping up in between the brothers, she butted her head under Seto's free arm and cuddled against his side after giving the Persian a scornful warning glare in response to its unhappy hiss. Seto laid a hand on Umbreon's head and began rubbing her behind the ears. Soon both Pokémon were calmed and, for the moment, accepted each other's presence, and Seto was able to return his attention to the story.

Apparently when Tea had left Solomon to help the regular personnel, the floor that held the baby Pokémon had immediately been attacked. Solomon had had his Rhydon drill through the floor to the level below and sent his Dodrio to find Tea and the others to bring them back to the hole. Using his Onyx and Alakazam, Solomon kept the intruders out and packed his ears with gauze from a first aid kit he'd found, then had Tea's Wigglytuff sing the babies to sleep. Once they were, he'd lowered the babies through the hole to Tea and the others who moved them to another level to sleep out the next few hours.

The BPA with Duke in the lead had arrived and taken Team Rocket out where they'd been trapped between them and Solomon's Onyx and Alakazam. That's where their story ended and Duke's began, but he insisted that Mokuba go first. By the time his little brother was done, mentioning at the end how Pog had been trapped and then found under a pot that he'd had sitting on top of the aquarium that had been shattered and that his Bellsprout had simply taken off only to slink back into the Playroom while Seto had been upstairs, it was Seto's turn, but again Duke switched up the order.

Duke told them how he'd found plans in Gozaburo's office after he and the rest of Team Rocket had left that said the raid's time had been moved up and that he'd come racing here. On the way he'd picked up Tristan who'd basically been tailing him ever since. He'd called in every free agent the Bureau had available converge of the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds. They'd stormed every level of the building, recruiting the people that Seto had stationed there, those that were still present and conscious, and had everyone gather either in the floor holding the babies or the one that used to hold them, waiting to spring should someone belonging to Team Rocket show themselves.

"Then, why didn't you?" Seto asked at that point, staring Duke in the eye. "Why didn't you grab him the moment you saw Gozaburo was there?"

Duke held Seto's look for quite a while, enough to make everyone else uncomfortable (Seto was used to this kind of thing), and then said, "I wanted to test you."

"…Test…_me?_" Persian and Umbreon heard the tone in his voice and both raised their heads, ready to attack should Seto ask them to.

"Yeah. I wanted to see what you would do when you saw what you and he both thought was that Electrode he'd had his minions plant and thought that Gozaburo might blow the building up. I had to see for myself your reaction."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I didn't trust you. I still don't trust you, in fact. But I had to see if you were working with Gozaburo, so I did." He didn't seem apologetic about it. "Now I know that you weren't."

Everyone looked around at each other, not sure how to handle that bit of information. And, then, it was Seto's turn to tell his story.

* * *

That night Mokuba found his brother out at the lake. Seto had told him to meet him out here once it was dark, which had actually seemed like a bad plan to Mokuba, but Seto had promised he wouldn't let anything happen to him. He even sent Umbreon to guide him, her glowing circles leading him through the charred remains of the yard to the stunted point where Seto, dressed in his wetsuit with the trapdoor to the tunnel wide open nearby, waited for him.

His Cloyster and Gyarados were already out, both enjoying the freedom the lake gave them for a time. A new addition in the form of Kabutops was stalking around the shoreline, turning rocks over with its blades-for-arms, maybe searching for fossils, Nidorino joining it in its search. Persian was back at the mansion, in its customary place curled on top of Seto's desk, Fearow in the tree just outside of the office, resting on its customary branch where it could see whoever approached from the gates as well as see Seto's office chair, and Gengar was in its customary place in the shade Seto created, taking in everything that Seto did, truly acting as his second shadow.

Mokuba knew there was something that Seto had left out when he told everyone what he'd gone through to get to the breeding grounds to stop Gozaburo. He'd seen Duke narrow his eyes at the point where whatever he didn't say should have been, but the Bureau of Pokémon Affairs hadn't called him out on it. Everyone had been sent home after that, told to rest and feel proud of themselves for what they'd accomplished the night before. A handful of BPA agents had stayed behind to protect the Kaiba brothers and the breeding grounds from any dregs of Team Rocket that might show up, but both Seto and Mokuba had a feeling that things were over for now, at least in regards to those people.

Seto and Mokuba had a hell of a lot they still needed to do. Ignoring the damage done to the breeding grounds and the mansion, just fixing up Kaiba Corp. would be a full-time job for months to come. And then they needed to come up with a feasible reason why it had happened to tell the press if they wanted to keep KEBG a secret, and then they had to assure the populace that something like that wouldn't be happening again. KC was not going to be the world's favorite company for a while to come thanks to Gozaburo and his messed up Blasters and Team Rocket.

And if Mokuba was worried about it, he knew his brother had been doing so a hell of a lot more and worse. But, instead of getting right on it, he'd practically lounged the day away, even making time for what Mokuba could only call "cuddle sessions" with Umbreon and Persian, even Nidorino to an extent. And now he'd invited him out here. Mokuba had no clue what was going on.

As he approached he saw that Seto was clutching an unexplained pokéball in one hand. After a few more steps, Mokuba heard his brother whisper, "We have a lot of rebuilding to do," to the pokéball before he flung it to the water and the Pokémon within burst forth.

"Mokuba, meet Dragonair."

**Thank you for reading all the way through, everyone! Congratulations on making it this far! I love this fic. I've had so much fun with it and have been grateful to everyone who's bothered to pay it even the slightest bit of attention. Thanks again to all of you.**

**I'm going to be taking a break from this for a bit, so the sequel (because, yes, there is going to be one) won't be my main priority for a bit. **


End file.
